For Glory, Honor, Power, Revenge
by Zanathir
Summary: It was a normal day in Runescape, when a massive army of noobs attack Lumbridge and threaten to overrun Runescape. Yet are the noobs really the main threat? It would seem that Runescape is threatened by more than a rabble of unoginised noobs...
1. Disclaimer and Prologue

Disclaimer, Prologue, and Anything Else I can think of

This is not the first chapter of the story. The story begins in chapter two. This is a disclaimer, a prologue, introduction… if you're not interested in reading stuff like that, then skip this chapter or just read the last two paragraphs.

I just wrote the disclaimer for my latest update, and it was the longest paragraph in the entire chapter. I thought it was kinda ridiculous, and I'd just have to repeat the disclaimer for the next chapter… So now I've moved all the chapters up one, and removed the disclaimers from all of them. This is not a chapter, it is a disclaimer. And I'll probably end up using it as a sort of prologue as well. So before you sue me for anything, read this.

Runescape is the property of Jagex. As such, the aforesaid company Jagex owns all locations, items and unnamed creatures mentioned in this fiction, as well as some names and events. Specifically, Jagex owns the names, some dialogue and actions of the characters King Arthur, Merlin, Nora T. Hagg, Thormac, Wormbrain, Gunthor, Readbeard Frank, Helemos, Hans, Mysterious Old Man, Charos, Brundt, King Vargas, Askeladden, Sigli the huntsman, Lord Iowerth, Zamorak, Saradomin, Guthix and Zaros. (Whew… I think that's all) Jagex's main claim is in that their massive online adventure game provided the layout, the inspiration and the raw material for this story.

Some characters in this story are owned by neither me nor Jagex. My thanks to those who have allowed me to include their characters in this story. Character development, personality, some appearances and actions of the following characters are mine. But the name the skills, some description are acknowledged to the following people, in order of appearance:

Character's Name: …………………………………………………………………Property of:

Hawkfeather ……………………………………………………………………………DragonLord9

Leafdarking………………………………………………………………………………insert catchy name here

Luthandros ………………………………………………………………………………Sylphatos

Biohazardluver………………………………………………………………………Biohazardluver

DarknessDie……………………………………………………………………………Raio

Cerrin Wyver…………………………………………………………………………… Serrabradhadair

Freakoldman……………………………………………………………………………GarlKurn

Blazingwarri……………………………………………………………………………Obscure Shadow

Calladus…………………………………………………………………………………Sith Worshipper

Radune……………………………………………………………………………………Moonchanter

Killerbum………………………………………………………………………………Kill3rbum

Nakama…………………………………………………………………………………Unspokendesires

Raneundead…………………………………………………………………………………Rane Metal

Dunan………………………………………………………………………………………Dunan0

Sage Erk0…………………………………………………………………………………Ghost of Ivan

Noela………………………………………………………………………………………FleeingFaith

Skwerlguy………………………………………………………………………………AngredOne

Gigawolf…………………………………………………………………………………Gigawolf1

Arkane……………………………………………………………………………………The Unseen Bard

Sprite………………………………………………………………………………………Av.Rouku

I own basically everything that Jagex doesn't. The story is mine, as is the personality of all the characters previously mentioned as property of Jagex. All characters named that have not been mentioned prior to this sentence, are solely of my imagination. The characters Zanathir, Parrea, Kryarn, Kysin, Adrilor and Morak are entirely imagination; if they exist within the game Runescape then they are totally unrelated to me or this story.

Also any similarities to people, in either name or personality, is entirely coincidence. I was not trying to imitate anyone in this story.

Totally aside from the disclaimer, if you would like your Runescape character in this story, then just drop in a review. Tell me your character's name, combat, any other important skills, class (mage, ranger, miner, fletcher etc.) gender, favorite clothes, weapon, god, personality…

And remember, what you don't tell me, I invent.

And please no flames concerning how I used your character in the story. Like the personality, actions, dialogue, loyalties etc. Also, be patient. Your character probably won't be in the very next chapter… may not even appear within the next ten chapters. But your character will get in the story, somehow and somewhere.

Thanks

Zanathir


	2. Never Strikes Twice

Chapter one:

... Never Strikes Twice

It began a normal, peaceful day in Runescape. I was just about to embark on another slayer task, this time werewolves, and was in the chicken yard across from Lumbridge collecting arrow feathers. Then, within the same second, three things happened.

First, I heard this huge explosion, louder than anything I'd ever heard before - and that includes explosive potions, cannons and most spells. Then, I saw the entire Lumbridge castle begin to tumble. As I stared unbelievingly at the castle's destruction, I felt tremors from the earth beneath my feet. These tremors grew as the castle slowly and painstakingly collapsed.

For only a few seconds I stood and stared, before I remembered my duty as a Legend of Runescape. I raced towards the castle, which was still falling.

I had taken only a few steps before I realized that, if any invader was attacking, I wouldn't be much help with only a short oak bow and bronze arrows. I changed direction and arrived at the gates to Al Kharid.

Without stopping to explain to the guards, I vaulted over the fence and sped onwards to the bank. I stored all my ranger equipment, and withdrew my full rune amour, and my prized possession: the abyssal whip. For good luck, I donned my lucky team-9 cape. Even with over 50kg worth of amour, I was still able to jog the distance to Lumbridge castle.

As I approached, I remembered my glory amulet. "No! I'm still wearing Lord Iowerth's crystal pendant that I had on when I was killing chickens! It won't help protect me at all!" I decided that I didn't have time to return to the bank, so I left the green necklace on. So little did I know about that pendant...

I arrived at the place where Lumbridge castle used to be, and immediately began searching the rubble for survivors. I was searching the rocks directly beneath what had been the duke's bedroom, when I heard a disturbance behind me.

I whirled around, and saw Hans pulling himself out of the rubble. I walked up to him. "Hans, are you OK?" No answer. "Hans?" Hans had fully pulled himself out of the rubble now, and was standing. But something was wrong. "Hans?" I yelled, beginning to panic now. Still no answer. He just stood there, staring at his feet. I grabbed his head and made him face me. What I saw terrified me. He looked more dead than the soulless adventures lost in the underground pass. And on his forehead was branded a large N. I was confused. What did 'N' stand for? Noob? How could noobs do this? It didn't make sense.

Then I heard another explosion, from somewhere close by. There was no mistaking this sound: it was a dwarf multicannon. I wildly looked around, and saw a cannon set up in the ruins surrounding the HAM trapdoor. I looked closer, and saw people standing behind the cannon. Lots of people. Lots of people wielding wooden shields and bronze swords.

One of the noobs walked a short distance from the rest, and pointed straight at me. With a wild yell the noobs charged down the slope towards the ruins of Lumbridge. I stood my ground, and made ready to defend the ruins and myself.

I heard something speed past me and hit the ruined wall I was standing against. The sound it made reminded me horribly of a daganoth's slimy foot hitting bare rock. I had enough time to realize what it really sounded like, when another missile splashed into the rocks near my feet. "Oh " I exclaimed. Standing on top of a tree stump, was a mage preparing his next water strike. I wished I still had my ranging gear. He threw it. I moved to dodge it, but some noobs ran at me and shoved me back into it's path. The strike splashed on my rune amour. I fell and knew no more...

I came to with my head reeling. As I got up, I examined my surroundings and remembered what had happened so far. I tried to think where the noobs would go next, and the answer was obvious. Port Sarim.

With no guards whatsoever and a good rune shop and battleaxe shop, it was a perfect target. I set off at a run for Port Sarim. I approached it very soon, and at once saw that I was too late.

The prison had been smashed, along with the bar and shops. That dumb respawnable goblin Wormbrain was out of jail, and was walking around the deserted town. His head was down, and he seemed to have no clear idea of where he was going. A quick look at his forehead confirmed my worst fears. The noobs had struck again.

Ok, so Port Sarim was gone. Now what? Varrock of course. The noobs so far have got runes and battleaxes – but no swords, daggers, plate bodies or elemental staffs. Remembering the last water strike that had hit me, I charged northwards past Draynor mansion.

The further north I went, I heard the sounds of fighting. The best sound was the unmistakable "YEEEAAAARRRGGGGHHH" that every good barbarian yells before combat. In the barbarian village, the war was raging. The barbarians were giving the noobs a hard time, what's more they seemed to be enjoying it. From what the noobs were wearing and wielding, I gathered that they had stormed varrock already, and taken staffs, swords and plates. The good news was that none of them were wearing Peska's helmets.

I ran east a short way until I saw the smoking ruins of Varrock. As there was no point staying here, I returned to the barbarian village and tried to aid the barbarians. But for all their strength, they were actually quite stupid. I had just handed a level 11 noob a free ticket to lumbridge, when I felt a crushing blow glance off my rune armor.

Spinning around, I was faced with a barbarian, who was raising his axe for another hit. "Hey I'm on your side!" I shouted in his face. The reply was clear, "Sorry mate, but Gunthor said the enemy was anyone who isn't a barbarian, and I don't think you are one."

So what could I do? I killed him and figured that they didn't need my help here, so I left for Falador. The white knights should at least have some warning. I arrived at Falador from the north, and was faced by a positive wall of guards. They had organized themselves standing shoulder to shoulder right in the gateway, and totally refused to let me past.

So now what? They apparently knew of the danger already, and seemed to be handling it quite well. Then the thought struck me. How could I have forgotten? If the noobs get the monastery, then they will have a good alter, and noobs with prayer are harder than noobs without.

I arrived at the monastery to find that the monks there had put aside all ideas of peace and were thrashing the living heck out of the noobs. Leading them was a warrior, wearing full adamant amour. Getting closer I discovered that it was actually my Saradomin-loving friend, Alkir.

Ok, so everything seemed to be alright here – but so far no sign of the cannon or the noob leader himself. I walked back the barbarian village, not too worried about the fate of Runescape now that everything was basically under control. But as I neared the village, I could hear something was wrong. There were no more barbarian warcries! I crept closer, and saw a familiar hooded figure. It was the Mysterious Old Man that had given me a strange box once.

He was standing in front of a barbarian warrior, which four noobs were trying hard to control. He touched the barbarian's forehead with his finger, and traced their mark on it. The barbarian relaxed. His head hung down. He wandered off, obviously in the same trance that wormbrain and Hans were in. Only then I noticed that the whole village was like that. Except Gunthor, I couldn't see him anywhere…

It was only now that I saw the extreme seriousness of the situation. If the noobs had a guy who could put people in listless trances then… "This is bad", I thought. "Real bad" But the noobs were moving on west. What lies to the west? Falador and Taverly. Falador looked alright for defense, but Taverly is just a bunch of peaceful, nature-loving white guys. On my way to Taverly, I remembered Alkir. "He isn't my only high level friend! I have more!"

Unfortunately, all my friends were offline somewhere, except one. Kryarn's a dumb noob, (and proud of it) just a very strong one (level 79). So I tried to explain everything in one go: "low levels are taking over! There in Taverly now basically! You gotta help!" And the answer came;

"Why you only got noobs taking over? You notta noob. But ill help ya take over, sure."

"NO! IM TRYING 2 STOP THEM!"

"Oh righty. Can I watch?" Dam him, I can just hear the slow drawl he talks like. "Well sure u can watch, but bring yor amour and weapons" "OK k, coming."

When I arrived in Taverly, I immediately went to my druid friends Kaquemeex, Jatix and Sanfew. I quickly explained the situation, but they simply didn't believe me. "If what you are saying is true, then the balance of Guthix would be disrupted. Our God would not allow that to happen." I walked back to the gateway between Taverly and Asgarnia.

I stood there and waited. "Hiya Zana! Sup?" The voice came from behind me. I turned and saw Kryarn with no amour or weapons whatsoever. "I thought I told you to bring FULL amour!" I yelled at him. "Why?" He replied. I began to speak, but was interrupted by a low, awed "Whoa". Kryarn was facing the road to Falador, his face lit with delight.

"Wow, Zanathir dude! You got a real noob army here! I mean, it's the real under 10 noobs! The hardcore, goblin slaying noobs!" Well of all the reactions I had been expecting…

"Kry, I don't think you understand. These guys have trampled Varrock and they've got a cannon and Mysterious ol…" He interrupted me there.

"A cannon? Where'd they get that from?"

"Uh...' Good question. Where did level 30- noobs get a cannon from? When they're like 800k each? 'ok... I dunno where they got a cannon from, but they got one anyway. And they also got a mysterious old man that puts people into trances so they're not really human anymore." Lame explanation, but I think he got the idea cause he nodded.

"But... this don't make sense. How could noobs take over Runescape? How did they get a mysterious old man and a cannon? How could they get pas..."

"I DON'T KNOW!" I literally screamed at him. He stopped talking, and just looked at me, slightly open-mouthed.

"BUT THEY JUST ARE AND WE GOTTA STOP THEM!"

A slight pause. "ohkay..." coming from Kryarn, "But... I still wanna know answers."

Grrrrrrrr...   
I was just about to yell back when I heard Kryarn yell, "HEY!" And saw him race past me towards the first of the noobs entering the gate. After a moments comprehension, I saw that the noob was unmercifully beating up the boy who's ball I had returned once. At least, he was beating up the boy. But now, he was soaring threw the air back the way he came, right back over the wall.

"Good throw Kryarn!" I yelled. He wasn't listening. Instead, he was attacking the noobs with his hands and feet. They surrounded him...

Noobs were flying everywhere. I was kept busy just killing the ones that Kryarn threw. I watched him battle his way to the gate. He grabbed both gates and shoved them closed. They shut with a resounding clang. Kryarn braced himself and held the gate shut while the noobs tried to push it open again.

I ran around and killed the noobs still on this side of the gate. I was just finishing off the last one right beneath the wall when I heard something that made my blood run cold for only a moment... The sound of a blast spell being created. And it was coming from directly above me.

I spun around, and looked up at the wall just in time to see a mage wearing an assortment of robes (nothing mystic), and creating a fire blast. I stared for like less than half a second. But that was enough. The mage threw his spell, and the fire blast hit me hard in the chest. My blood went from cold ice to liquid fire. I felt the spell hurl me backwards, and for the second time that day, everything swirled and went black...

A/N: This is only the first chapter. Please review and let me know if I should write more.


	3. Hag, Spy and Ranger

Chapter Two:

Hag, Spy and Ranger

I came to in a house. It took me a few moments to recognize the house I was in. I had been here only once before... My heart sunk with dread. Somehow, I had been saved from the noobs, but now I was inside the house belonging to Nora T. Hagg, the fanatical Zamorak worshiper, dangerous experiment maker and ball-stealer. And there was the hag herself, standing at her window and staring out.

She turned as I stirred, and I fully expected to be zapped or fed to her new experiments or something. But no. She just turned back to the window and said, "you're friend is acting a leetle strange."

My head swum as I rose. I walked to the window and... "Oh god no." Kryarn was wandering around aimlessly outside. Head down. I didn't even have to check his forehead to realize what had happened.

"Whats ah wanna know," Nora T. Hagg spoke, "is how come they had ya twice and didn't write n on ya forehead?" Dam, another good question. Why did noobs have cannon? Why was the mysterious old man on their side? Why didn't they brand me properly when they had the chance? Why? What? How? When? Questions circled around my head.

"War!" Nora's high cackle brought me fully back to real life. "What...wait...war?" I said sluggishly. "YES!" She cackled gleefully. "A war! They gots a cannon and powerful magics and they're undefeatable! But we will get them YES! It's what my Lord wants! We win and defeat the noobs!" God she's so happy about it all. "It's gonna be a WAR!"

"We are in war!" Said Nora, calming down now slightly. "They have an army... and no real weakness that the old man they gots can't fill. We need to find the old man's power... and break it! And then we break the rest of them easy as boneless corpses!"

By old man I got that was meaning the mysterious old man that put people in a trance. But Nora T. Hagg was still mumbling, talking to herself more than me now. I caught words like "strategy", "claws" and "commander." I jumped when she pointed a finger at me and shrieked,

"Black burthorpe army isn't only friends we got eh? Your friend out there! He got useful other friends? You have other useful friends?" I checked my friends. All were off, except for Kryarn and Alkir, who wasn't replying when I messaged him. I didn't wanna think about why... But Kryarn might very well have helpful friends.

I left Nora's house, and walked over to where he was standing. As expected, he didn't respond to me whatsoever. I went through his pockets, and found his friends list. I checked it, and discovered that he had five friends online and one of them was me. I went back into Nora's house, and contacted Kryarn's friends. I hoped that some of them at least would be able to help.

First guy on Kryarn's list was Kysin. I contacted him, inwardly hoping that he would be more rational and helpful than Kryarn.

"Um, hey, Kysin, u don't know me but I'm one of Kryarn's friends. Kryarn has been...entranced by a wise old man that's helping noobs take over Runescape. We need help to stop them."

The reply took a few minutes in coming. When it did reply, the voice was very strange. It was soft, and deep sounding. I distrusted it instantly.

"So...this concerns me how."

I explained more of the problem.

"There's this huge army of noobs and they're taking over Runescape and they've gotta cannon to help them and a wise old man that can put people into listless trances so they loose their minds. We need help to defeat them."

Again, the reply was slow in coming.

"I will ask you again... how does this concern me?"

omg...

By now I was starting to get frustrated. I tried once more to get him to join us.

"If you don't help us, noobs will take over everything! They'll knock down shops, houses, churches, castles, pubs..."

The fast, loud reply caught me off guard, especially as I was thinking Kysin was a very slow, drawling person.

"PUBS?"

"Um...oh yeah, pubs. The noobs will knock down the pubs! Meet at Nora T. Hagg's house if you wanna help us stop them."

It seemed that Kysin had recovered from the shocking idea of noobs destroying pubs now, and he took his normal few minutes to reply a quiet, calm two words:

"I'm in."

Ok, I now have two more of Kryarn's friends to contact and persuade. I just hoped that they were more... normal than Kysin. I contacted Parrea and began to explain the problem.

"Parrea, the noobs have formed a huge army and th..."

She cut me off.

"I know damit! I've been watching from the wizard's tower since they blew up Lumbridge!"

The wizard's tower?

"Are the wizards safe?" I asked.

"No. The cannon got them too. I'm on entrana now. No noobs here."

So entrana was safe, but the wizards were not. I just hoped that the noobs hadn't been smart enough to force the wizards to make them splitbark amour. I explained our war effort. Her reply was not long in coming:

"You're at Nora's? Good...good. I'll be on top of white wolf mountain. If the noobs are in Burthorpe, I'll get them better from there."

"But, wait...White Wolf Mountain? How are you gonna do much damage to noobs from all the way up there?" I voiced my thoughts.

From the sound of her voice, I could tell she was smiling.

"I'm a ranger."

'And a pretty good one too, if you can reach noobs from the top of the mountain'I thought.

Two down...one more to go. I was staring out the window, listening to the raging sounds of battle coming from the north, from Burthorpe, when a dark figure slipped in through the window. He was so fast, if I had blinked at the wrong time, I would've missed him.

I whirled around to face the dark figure. He was now leaning back in a chair, his feet planted on Nora's table. He didn't seem at all disturbed that he had just entered without invitation.

He was a small, wiry figure, dressed in black trousers and shirt, and his skin was darker brown than the native Karamjirans. He was holding a poisoned black dagger, and a range of poisoned black darts.

"Who in Guthix's name are you?" I asked, impolitely. He lifted one eyebrow at me, and took an apple from the fruitbowl in the centre of the table. He started eating the apple. After a few minutes he replied, "I could tell you my name but would that be who I am? I could tell you my skills, my professions, my friends... Define 'who am I.'"

I recognized his voice immediately. It was Kysin.

"So... how do you make money normally?" I asked him in an effort to start a conversation. After his normal, infuriating few minutes of silence, he replied:

"I'm a merchant, though many other merchants would be ashamed to have me in their profession. I obtain most my goods through thieving and eavesdropping. The trade in information is almost as high as the trade in goods." He smiled. I mumbled an excuse and walked outside to contact the last person on Kryarn's list. There was something about Kysin that made me feel uneasy.

The last person on the list was named Morak. I explained the situation, our plans and asked if he could help. His voice when he replied was harsh, grating like wet stone on rock. "If your enemy penetrates my master's domain, I will speed their deaths closer. I won't travel anywhere to help anyone that doesn't concern me. Like white druids don't concern me. And I will never, definitely not help foolish fat saradomin-loving monks." I heard him spit on the word 'saradomin'. I tried again.

"But... wait... we gotta stop them now or else they will attack your place and kill everything around it." His reply was fast and blunt.

"If you don't leave me alone, I will come, and crush you along with you're pitiful army." Ok...so I guessed he wasn't going to help much. God Kryarn has some weird friends...

"Ha! You spy! Thief! Unseen killarrr!" The excited screech of Nora brought me running back inside. I arrived to see Kysin sitting on the window sill looking calm as usual, which said a lot for his self-control because he had Nora shrieking at him, loud.

I expected Nora to be angry and force Kysin out of her house immediately like she did when I last trespassed. But no. "You will fit the strategy yes!" she screamed. Then she noticed me.

"You're friends? Anyone's friends? Where are them? How many goblin armies, dragons and cannons did they bring?"

Um...well actually...

"Kysin and a female ranger called Parrea are they only people that are going to help. And there's no dragons or armies or anything coming." She stopped, and I could see her absorbing the information. Her face fell.

"Wha...no armies? No banners or numbers for Runescape? Just...just you and him," she gestured towards Kysin, "and the girl ranger? And me? Is that all?"

"um, yeah, that's it I guess." Wow, she's actually right. We've only got four people that are definitely on our side that's still alive or unentranced or anything. Kysin was looking at both of us, his blank expression made it impossible to tell what he was thinking. I turned towards Nora.

Her face became slightly happier, more determined looking. "That's fine! Then we won't have a war! Not enough of us for a war. But we are all worth many many noobs each, and once dark assassin kills the old man we charge and fight and die with glory!"

There was a momentary silence. It was interrupted by Kysin slipping out of the half-open window. From outside the window, he looked in and said, "I'll be back before dawn." Then he left.

I went to window where he had been only seconds ago, and peered out. Kysin was gone. Gone where? I was about to ask this question to Nora when she cackled quietly and said, "Yesss. The unseen killer has been released... Once he returns, we will attack." Zanathir looked out the window for a moment then put his hands to his neck to feel the familiar weight of Lord Iowerth's pendant. "Hey!" he exclaimed. "My pendant! It's gone!"


	4. A Mission Changed

Chapter Three

A Mission Changed

By the time Zanathir was at the window, Kysin was passing the hero's guild to the north. His passing was fleet and silent as the wind from the southern islands. He quickly noticed the blue dragon chained outside the guild, it being the pet of the guildmaster Achilles. But his mission was not with dragons or heroes; it was with an old man...

As he sped northwards, the sounds of war became more apparent. He reached the town of Burthorpe; a quick glance telling him that the noobs had taken over the city. He slowed his pace slightly, and silently jogged up the side of the lower mountain range, that divides the troll home from the wilderness. Poisoned darts in hand - and stolen pendant around his neck, he sped upwards, a deadly shadow against the waning sun.

He reached the point in the mountains directly above troll plateau, commonly known as such for it was a high, flat area inhabited by trolls. He slid down the side of the mountain and landed, cat-like, on troll plateau.

Sprinting to the southern edge of the plateau, he dropped to his belly and listened. Behind him, there were only snores. "Stupid, stupid trolls" he thought. Below him, there was silence. He knew that he was too far above Burthorpe to hear anything quieter than a major explosion or a cannon, but the silence was re-assuring anyway. With great deliberation, he lowered himself over the edge.

In the growing darkness, he slid downwards. But no master spy or assassin is such without great knowledge of the terrain. Kysin had thoroughly explored everywhere in Runescape, including this slope. He knew every pebbly area, every jutting-out rock, everything. Even in the gathering darkness he found his way down silently.

He paused for a moment on a protruding rock, overlooking the Burthorpe castle. He listened, and looked for the telltale flame torch. Nothing. Good. No guards on this side of the wall.

He crouched, and then leaped. His jump carried him over the parapet of the castle and safely onto the walls. He allowed himself less than a second's recovery before he sprinted towards the nearest tower. Gaining it, he rested in the shadows it created. He rested, and listened.

On the opposite wall from him, the wall facing the noobs camp, he could hear the ceaseless pacing of the imperial black guards. He edged closer to the wall parapet. The castle courtyard was filled with makeshift tents, and siege weapons.

He could see a large catapult that had obviously been broken, for repairmen were fixing it. Kysin inwardly groaned, though none could tell he did such from his outer expressions. What could break a catapult that size? The damage wasn't done by fire, and any swords the noobs possessed weren't nearly strong enough to bash up a catapult. Only one weapon could've done damage like that. The noob's cannon was here.

Apart from the damaged catapult, there seemed to be no other casualties and the imperial army seemed active, non-entranced. So... the noobs cannon was here, but their wise old man either wasn't here or wasn't entrancing the black guards.

Weighing up the options, Kysin came to the conclusion that the wise old man wasn't here, or else all the black guards would be in a trance by now. Two full days of the Burthorpe siege had already passed... So where was the old man? "Not here," he thought. "And I've gotta be back before sunrise, so time to search for him I don't have."

So Kysin concluded that he couldn't get the wise old man at all, instead, to go for the cannon. He figured that the cannon was just about as damaging as a wise old man. He hadn't seen a demonstration of the old man's powers...

So now, Kysin had a new target. He snaked over the back of the wall parapet, and landed on the mountainside he had just left. He then headed eastwards, towards the blacksmith. Within the blacksmith's place he should find all the necessary items for permanently dismantling a cannon.

He traveled lightly on the mountainside until he was facing the back wall of the blacksmith's house. He stopped, and listened. Inside he heard snores. Behind him, the way he'd come, he heard low talking. Guard noobs watching the castle. He dropped inside the blacksmith, and grabbed a toolkit from behind the door.

Even if one of the noobs guarding had turned around, they would've seen naught. Kysin's true element of invisibility was fully here now: dark of night.

As a shadow, a shade, the same tone as his surroundings Kysin crept through the noobs camp. He knew Burthorpe well, and knew where the noobs would likely have their cannon stored: in the garden behind the toad and chicken pub.

He made for the garden, and dropped on his belly in the shade of a makeshift tent. By habit, he listened as looking would do him to no avail in the dark. He heard the regular camp sounds, light talking, fires crackling, weapons rattling and snoring. Anything else? Anything abnormal? No. This should've been comforting, but it wasn't.

Zanathir had described the army as more than this. But, the small feeling of unease wouldn't go away even though there was no reason why it should be present.

Kysin counted deliberately to nine, and sprinted towards the garden. He pounced over the fence landing on his hands and feet so as to minimize noise. He dashed to the cannon and paused. No one had seen, heard, or otherwise noticed he had passed.

Or so it seemed even to his acute senses. But the uneasy feeling was steadily growing. Something wasn't right. There were only a few noobs guarding the frontlines facing the castle, there were none guarding the cannon, most noobs seemed to be relaxing.

Either the noobs were really stupid, or they were working on a clever plan to make their enemies think they were stupid. And Kysin never underestimated his enemies. To do so, to take risks could result in being caught, and such meant failure.

Slowly Kysin rose, and observed the cannon with his hands. He felt the barrels, the stands, the furnace and the base. He had come across one of these before. From Dondaken the dwarf, deep in the Keldagrim Mines, he had learnt that cannons were easily assembled, and there was no material strong enough to break them, except another cannon.

He had also learnt that there were no screws, bolts, nails or anything holding the cannon together. The pieces simply fitted into each other. With difficulty, he could take the cannon apart - only to have the noobs rebuild it come morning. Yet all pieces fitted together perfectly, they all need each other to work... If one piece was lost or... or taken, the cannon would be useless.

Kysin dropped his toolbox, and set to work dismantling the cannon. He had decided to take the stand, it being the lightest. (But still weighing over twenty kilos) He painstakingly lifted off the barrels and the furnace, and placed them quietly in the yard.

After every small move, he paused and listened. It took him about two and a half hours before the barrels and furnace were lying safely on the ground. Great. Now he just had to lug 20 kilograms worth of cannon stand south and he could rest and let the real heroes take over. He picked up the stand, put it over his shoulder, and walked south.

His plan was to take as direct a path as possible. He weaved in and out of the tents, painfully aware of every sound his weighted footsteps made, of every patch of moonlight that glinted off the stand. Then, ahead of him, he saw fire. He smiled inwardly.

The hero guild's pet blue dragon was just ahead of him. He would dump the stand deep beneath the guild, and trust the noobs would never think to look there. Maybe he'd bury them even, in the cage where the blue dragon was normally kept.

He ran forwards and a little west of the flames, and reached the heroes guild door. He paused, and turned back towards the illuminated scene. The blue dragon was going berserk. She was breathing fire everywhere, and all the nearby pine trees were inflamed.

The noob's absence at camp was explained here. There was about forty noobs attacking the one dragon. But their spells, arrows and swords weren't affecting the mythical fury at all. Kysin turned his back on the scene, opened the Heroes guild door, and walked in.

He quickly ran for the ladder down, and jumped. He dropped the few metres, landing safely despite the large encumbrance on his back. He jogged to the cage where the dragon was normally kept, with every intention of burying the stand here. But no, any invader worth the title would dig the place up in search of dragon's gold.

Instead, he followed the tunnel someway, and came to the small coal mine. He dumped the stand at the bottom of the mine, and shoved the piled dirt on top of it. When he had finished, there was no trace that there had ever been a coal mine been there, or a coal mine with a cannon stand at the bottom of it.

Kysin sat down on the filled-in coal mine, and rested. He allowed himself a few minutes, before rising, and heading towards the ladder he had descended; the only entry and exit out of the tunnel. He climbed swiftly, and arrived on ground level.

Outside the front of the guild, he could still see fire, and the magnificent blue dragon. He decided to continue upstairs, and from there onto the balcony where he would drop down into the hero guild's backyard thus avoiding the heat, light and chaos out front. He chased up the stairs, and sprinted to the balcony.

So intent was he on continuing this last lap of his mission, that his guard was down by only that little bit. He was so concentrating on getting from the top of the stairs to over the balcony edge as fast as possible that nothing else mattered - annoyingly at that one time where nothing else did.

He had reached the balcony doors, and in a single, fluid motion had them open and would've been over the edge within the next half-second. Had not the weapon seller of the guild been there. Had not he mistaken Kysin for the enemy.

But as fate would have it Helemos, the retired hero who sold dragon battleaxes and maces was there, wielding a perfect example of his stock. He brought the battleaxe down crashing on the place where Kysin's head was. But some sixth instinct forced Kysin to do what he always did when threatened. Always, hide. Drop into the shadows.

He crashed onto his belly, and would've snaked into the shadows outside but for the axe of Helemos. It came crashing down on Kysin's unprotected backbone, cleaving it as easily as it would cut soft butter. Kysin's eyes grew bright, then they glazed over...


	5. Saved from the Respawnable Noobs

Chapter Four

Saved from the Respawnable Noobs

"He should be back by now." I said. Kysin had promised he'd be back before dawn, and the sun was up and shining now. I was growing frustrated with Kysin off Guthix knows where, and me sitting here doing absolutely nothing... Nora too, was getting frustrated.

Maybe it was because she'd been pacing the floor since dawn, or the way she kept teleporting outside, or how she consistently urged me to contact Kysin gave me the idea that yep, she was getting annoyed.

The sun rode high in the sky, and Kysin still hadn't returned when we heard it. Quietly at first, so quiet it was dismissed as wind in the hedge, or birdsong. As it grew, it was unmistakable. It seems that we both realized what the sound was at the same time, for Nora looked at me, her pudgy eyes wide and mouth slightly open at the same time I looked at her in a similar way.

We were frozen immobile with fear before we acted. In the same moment, we jumped out of our chairs like the wooden seats had inexplicably transformed into sharp nails, pointing upwards. We ran into the garden, and peered through the hedge. The noise was louder now, and its cause was passing us. At the front of a giant line of assorted fighters, marched a heroic-looking figure, obviously the noob's leader.

We watched, awestruck at the sight of this massive army coming our way. Even I hadn't known the noob army was this large. We watched the noob's leader march up towards the stone alter to Guthix. He stopped.

As one, the entire army behind stopped as well. The leader said nothing; he simply raised his left hand and pointed. First at the Guthix alter, then...at Nora's house. As one, the army started moving again. This time, it was an unorganized, yelling rabble that charged up to the Guthix alter, and began tearing it apart. Beside me, Nora shrieked one word, "RUN!" I obeyed instantly, and sprinted through the house and out the front door.

We headed west, with no clear idea of where we were going, except to get away from this army. The shouting, charging noobs were sprinting flat-out behind us. We ran east as far as we could, which was only a mere three hundred or so meters from Nora's house.

Gasping for breath after three hundred meters run in heavy amour, I stopped. Beside me, there was a bang and a flash of purple light. Nora T. Hagg had teleported somewhere. Where? Away from here. I whirled around, ready to face the inevitable onslaught.

It was seconds before the noobs were upon me. If it had been one, ten, or even up to fifty individual, unorganized noobs I would've destroyed them all easily; messaging friends while I did so. But this was more. Hundreds, thousands even. And they were led by one individual; one single man of power commanded them with a word, a gesture, a tiny sign...

He was south a little, standing on a boulder on the lower slopes of White Wolf Mountain. His right arm was outstretched, forefinger extended, pointing straight at me. I had seconds only to observe him standing there.

CRACK! My whip sliced the air, doubling back at a speed rivaling that of Zamorak's lightning bolts. A noob screamed out in agony as the arrow shaped tip gashed across his throat. Rich, warm blood sprouted fountain-like out of his torn neck, drenching all those around him. He fell, dead before he had hit the ground. His lifeless corpse was trampled by other noobs, eager to follow their masters pointing finger.

I pulled back for another swing. As my arm lifted, a steel-plated noob stuck his steel dagger in the weakest part of my amour, directly underneath my right arm. I pulled the dagger out of me with my left hand, flipped it around, and thrust it between the bars of the full helmet the noob was wearing. I heard him choke, and then I saw blood pouring out through the bars of his helmet, and his attempts to pull the helmet off before he drowned in his red liquid. Through the death of the steel-plated noob, my right arm hadn't ceased its swing.

I whirled it around expertly, throwing it forward and pulling it backwards at almost the same time, while spinning slightly to the left. The result: its razor tip sliced in a deadly circle, maiming everything in its path. Everything I had been facing as I spun was gashed. Flesh, amour, weapons. Noobs.

The attack from the steel-plated noob had weakened me slightly. Not by much, but every little bit adds up... For every little wound they dealt me, I had slain about twelve of their number. The carcasses were piling around me, creating a wall-like structure.

Still able-bodied noobs poured over the top of it. I was standing in a basin of blood basically. My continuous movement, and trampling of the immediate ground had lowered it slightly, and all the blood was draining onto the ground beneath my feet. I'd been fighting for a while now, and the blood was beginning to stick to my feet and legs, making movement difficult and disguising corpses beneath my feet.

In rare, occasional split-second lulls in the fighting, I could see to the south. The noob leader hadn't moved his arm in the slightest since this fight had begun.

My breaths came in slow gasps. How long had I been fighting. Since the sun was high. And now it was leaving, going down for the night... I couldn't keep this up for much longer, I knew. The noobs were still coming, I could see them.

I'd realized a while back how hopeless this task was. I must've killed every noob in the army at least once. I swear I'd seen the steel-plated one more than once. They must've arrived at Lumbridge, then headed back here at a dead run. Can't...keep...this...up...long...much...

I swung my whip again in a wide arc, adding more writhing corpses to the walls around me. In this small moment of peace, I looked to the west, towards the mountains, towards the sun. I had to know how much daylight I had left.

The sight at first made me freeze, with the beauty of the picture then the hope it gave me. There was a ranger, poised on a high, sharp point on the snowy mountainside. Silhouetted against the blazing orange sun behind her. Her bow was ready, an arrow notched and pointing straight east. She stood there for a moment like that, then aimed her arrow downwards, and slightly south.

She released the missile, and it went true and fast. I couldn't follow it with my eye. By the time I looked to her target, The leader was already falling... slipping off his boulder...making no attempt to stop himself...and an arrow imbedded in his neck. As he fell his finger pointed away from me...It pointed skywards... And the noobs stopped coming.


	6. Parrea

Chapter Five

Parrea

With the death of their leader, the noobs backed off, uncertain. I could hardly believe that I was going to live. I walked out of the small ditch I had created during the fight, and looked around me. The druid's village of Taverly and Nora T. Hagg's house stood out brightly in the waning light. The noobs had torched every flammable structure nearby.

"Where to go now?" Was my next thought. I continued to move away from the blood-filled basin and the lifeless corpses around me, exhaustion and the sickening stench of sticky blood clouding my mind and preventing me from thinking straight.

"Zanathir!" The voice that called my name came from above, from the mountainside. I looked up. The ranger, Parrea, was standing their, and she was holding a coil of rope. She threw it down towards me.

"Can you climb?" She called. In my present state, I wasn't sure. But I tried anyway. I slung my whip over my back, gripped the rope, and climbed upwards. My rune-plated feet walked up the vertical slope as I steadying myself on the rope. I could feel the amour dragging down on me. Climbing, even moving in such an enormous weight was torture to my already weakened body.

I reached the top, sweating and shaking from this last effort, despite that it was cold enough to hold the snow beneath my feet there. I fell onto the ground, and pulled my rune helmet off so I could breathe easier. Beside me, I could hear the rope snaking up the side of the mountain. I had rested only for about a minute before Parrea said, "We have to get off this mountain before nightfall." I groaned, and rolled over to look at the sun. What sun? It was basically nightfall already. But I could see the sense in her words. Overheated as I was now, the chilling cold from the mountain would soon engulf us.

I rose, and waited for Parrea to draw up the rope. She was wearing black dragonhide amour, the darkness of it highlighting her pale face, arms and hair. Over her back was a full quiver of rune-tipped arrows and a magic longbow. In her belt was a dragon dagger. In the growing darkness, she seemed to blend in. Pale skin and blonde hair mingling with the snowy landscape; her black garment could be easily mistaken for a boulder had she kept still.

She coiled the rope, and slung it round her neck and under her right arm. "Let's go" she said. Um...Go where? I thought. But I was too tired to talk, to do any more than stumble through the snow after her. And there was something about her, an aura of trust or something totally opposite as what Kysin had. I followed her down the mountain.

I don't know how we got over the mountain without being attacked by wolves or ice creatures, but we did. Half-falling down the last slope in the dark, we arrived at the bottom of the slopes, on the west side of White Wolf Mountain. Parrea rested for only about five minutes, then rose. I was so tired I couldn't imitate her movement. My amour is so heavy, I can't go much further... stop here...

As if reading my thoughts, Parrea replied to them, "Not far. We're making for Camelot. Come on. You can sleep there well enough." She offered me her hand, helping me up. I took it and she pulled me upright. She was strong, especially since she'd been slogging over mountains same as I had. She turned, and began walking west. With my eyes on the ground, in an effort to pick out rocks and other such obstacles I followed her west.


	7. A Council Disrupted

Chapter Six

A Council Disrupted

"How long have I slept?"

"Almost a full day. You needed it."

"For the other day, thanks. I reckon I would've gone to Lumbridge if you hadn't been there."

She shrugged. "I said I'd be there. This war is as much mine as it is yours. Kryarn was my friend too."

It was dusk. The orange fireball hung over the village to the west, garbing its druidical residents in gold. The previous night... I remembered a hard night stumbling through the trees towards the castle of Camelot.

On arrival, I came up to this room, took off my armor and had slept ever since. Parrea had been escorted to the room across the corridor from mine. Now we were standing on the balcony overlooking Seers village to the west.

"Are you rested enough?" Parrea broke the silence with a question. "King Arthur and his knights have been informed of the situation, and will organize a council as soon as we're both ready to attend." She spoke slowly and deliberately, as if unused to formal speech.

"Yeah sure, I'm ready. But councils aren't what we need now, the noobs should be knocking on Camelot gates now, we need soldiers not meetings." I said, my voice portraying some of my frustration despite my best attempts to keep it level. Parrea shrugged.

"King Arthur is a great commander, and he's won many wars. He should know better how to handle this than any of us." I swear I could detect contempt in her voice. Before I could question it she said, "I'll go downstairs and tell them you're ready." And she turned and walked towards the staircase.

Half an hour later, I was seated at the famed round table of King Arthur's court, wearing my rune armor minus the helmet. Two hours after that, I was still seated at the table, listening to the many knights stand and recite tales of how they'd handled events like this in the past.

The cool night air was streaming off the mountains through the open doors, making me shiver inside my armor. Throughout the entire discourse, Parrea had been like stone. I could see her bare arms prickling with the cold now, and still she remained totally immobile. Even though I had just spent the last two days in bed, I felt ready to sleep again. I tried to concentrate on Sir Gawain's steady drone and keep my eyelids open at the same time. I was loosing. My eyes were closing...closing...shut...

"Sir Zanathir, you may speak." Wha? Me... um... yeah... ok... speak? I was fully awake now. All eyes around the table were staring at me. I rose, and simply explained about the noobs, from my point of view. I told them the abridged version of my story from the destruction of Lumbridge to my arrival at Camelot. Then I asked questions.

"Why is the wise old man helping the noobs?"

"How did noobs get hold of a cannon?"

"Why didn't I get entranced when the noobs had me down twice?"

"Why hasn't Kysin returned?"

"Where's Gunthor?"

"The noob's leader is dead, so are the noobs still a threat?"

etc. etc. I finished my questions, then the King's wizard Merlin rose and said, "I have answers for you on every one of those matters. Sit down Zanathir, and listen.

The tale of the wise old man is a long one, but it will answer many of your questions in one. He has been granted immortality by some forgotten deity causing him to live longer than anyone else bar the Gods.

He has seen great civilizations, wars, inventions and magics. He has also seen them cast down and destroyed in one fell blow. He had friends once, yet they were mortal and died by sword, disease or old age - it doesn't matter how. So began his long search for a method to make life continue, evermore.

For centuries he worked, studying potions, stars and creatures while his companions fell dead around him. And then the war began, one that would maim the land of Runescape forever. For decades the armies of Saradomin and Zamorak fought over only they know what.

The war ended when the Greatest god Guthix arose, and looked down upon the world he created. With a word of power Guthix bade Zamorak and Saradomin to cease fighting. They obeyed. Then Guthix worked, casting and weaving the same spell around every living thing. From ducks to demons.

From gnomes to trolls, every living thing benefited from this spell. The spell was a gift, for every living creature that received it would _never die. _They would simply come back to life again, exactly the same as how they left it.

The old man was much angered by this, but dared not display his anger openly to Guthix. For centuries he had been working on a formula to make life continue forever, and Guthix had completed the entire process overnight. Guthix had stolen his ambition, his passion - what would've given him the honor he lived for.

Stubbornly, the old man kept at his studies, vowing to use the results against Guthix's world. Eventually, he came across a spell, that would override Guthix's enchantment. The old man's spell kept people from dying in the first place. Unfortunately, its side effects meant that the victim would be deprived of his spirit and soul, thus restricted to an everlasting life of wandering around in a deadened state.

And because he had created this spell, only he would know how to reverse it. He would enchant all of Runescape; performing simple memory- charms on the victims. Then, after the entire Runescape world had been entranced, he would lift the curse and the victims would praise him for it.

They would know him, and respect him as the one who had saved them from the curse. The old man would have the honor he searched for. It was then that the old man truly began.

He told no one about his spell, save his long-time powerful friend, Rorthan. Together, they built a trap. The old man would destroy Guthix's world runescape, while hiding behind the story of a power-crazy war leader named Rorthan.

Rorthan, in turn, would build an army of the only creatures that would want vengeance on the majority of Runescape population. Noobs. When they had the entire Runescape world succumbed to their evils, Rorthan would rule and have the utter power that he craved, and the old man would have his respect, his honor.

One by one, Rorthan and the old man called the noobs to their cause. They performed spells on the noobs to make them remain at the same level of intellect and warring ability until they were ready.

Rorthan didn't equip the noobs well, for fear that the enemy would guess that there was some greater force that had granted the noobs good items. But they needed a cannon, or something that would destroy walls, towers, gates and structures.

So Rorthan singled out the most powerful noob, one skilled at magics but not at any other form of combat. This noob mage was called Skraine. Rorthan gave Skraine enough money to purchase a cannon, and thus Skraine did. So the noob wars began.

As to you're other questions Zanathir, the noob's leader Rorthan isn't dead - simply because he has gift that Guthix granted to all living creatures. I know nothing of Kysin, but if the tale you told me is true, it seems likely that he was captured or entranced by the noobs or the old man.

But Gunthor... Gunthor is a great warrior, the greatest barbarian Runescape has ever known. He is wise as well as bold, wise enough to know when to flee and when to fight. He would've run north, into the chaos land called the Wilderness. From there... I know not of his plans. He could loose the noobs easily enough in the wilderness, and perhaps attempt to cross the troll-infested mountains to the west. Once over those mountains, he would join his kin at Relleka. But whatever his plans, he will find some means of joining the war - on our side.

And you say they had had you at their mercy twice, yet harmed you not? Strange...very strange... Tell me, were you wearing or holding anything? Any amulet or enchanted device that may have kept them off?"

Ok, what was I wearing the first time? Nothing extraordinary. Just regular rune armor, the team-9 cape isn't really magical or anything. The whip...

"When I was first attacked, I was carrying an abyssal whip. I was wearing full, normal rune armor, a team-9 cape and glory am...No wait, I wasn't wearing a glory amulet - I was wearing an emerald pendant given to me by the elven Lord Iowerth."

Merlin thought for a moment then asked, "Does the amulet have any powers, abilities or bonuses?"

"No. It just proves that I'm favored by Lord Iowerth." I replied

His answer was abrupt. "How do you know that this amulet proves that you're favored by the elven lord?"

"Because he gave it to me, to show to an elvish tracker. The elven tracker recognized it as Lord Iowerth's pendant; a gift granted to only those who were in Lord Iowerth's favor. He never said he wanted it back, so I kept it." I ended my explanation. On the other side of the table, an elf rose.

"To this council, I am Adrilor, a spy in Lord Iowerth's camp. Lord Iowerth has long been in league with king Lathas of Ardougne in their evil plot to take over Kandarin. I have pretended to serve Lord Iowerth loyally, but instead I have been watching him, and reporting. I know the pendant of which this adventurer speaks, and would recognize it easily were it shown to me."

All eyes turned to me. I thought for a moment then replied. "I don't have the pendant anymore. I misplaced it a Nora's house."

"How did you loose something so valuable as Lord Iowerth's pendant of goodwill?" retorted Adrilor, angrily.

Hey, that's another good question damit. How the hek did I loose that pendant when it was hanging around my neck the whole time? Did I have it when I entered Nora's? Or did the noobs take it after the struck me? No I swear I had it when I was in Nora's house... it was just after Kysin left that I misplaced it...Kysin...

They were staring at me, the entire council, every one of them searching my face for an answer. "Um... I don't really know how I misplaced it, but I noticed it was gone right after Kysin left to assassinate the old man, about an before sunset."

Adrilor's voice held an unmistakable tone of contempt. "So in your accusation of Kysin as a thief, you state that he stole the pendant from around your neck. Either this says a lot for his abilities, or little for yours."

Hey, wait... I never accused Kysin of stealing... did I? No I didn't. "I never said that Kysin took it, I only said that I noticed it directly after he left."

Adrilor opened his mouth, undoubtedly ready with a clever retort when Merlin cut across him. "But does it really matter? Zanathir claims that he had the pendant and there is no reason for us to suspect him of lies. We must assume that he gained it like he says, and lost it to the hands of this thief Kysin as he would not have let it go lightly."

_You tell him!_ I thought. Merlin was speaking again.

"So we must assume that the pendant is now in the hands of Kysin, thus protecting him from the old man's spells. As we do not have the pendant, we cannot study it and force it to reveal it's powers. Zanathir, when do you think that Kysin will return to us?"

"He said that he'd be back before sunset but that was some days ago." I answered. "But the pendant protects him from the old man's spells so he isn't in a trance or anything. So the noobs must've found him so... so now he's either dead and in Lumbridge or lying senseless somewhere..."

Beside me, I heard Parrea stir. Her voice held an unrestrained impatience. "Ok so now we know. The noobs are all detained at Burthorpe, Al Kharid and Falador and the old man and Rorthan are around there somewhere too, east. There's no way they can get to us except over or under White Wolf Mountain, or through troll territory. The pendant is gone, it's obvious that it protected Zanathir but that doesn't matter now cause it's lost or Kysin's got it. Either way we can't get it back very easily. And no one knows where Kysin is... Does anyone really care where Kysin is? And no one knows where Nora T. Hagg is either, but no one really cares because she's a crazy old witch. Is there anything else to add? If not, good. I'm going to bed."

And she just walked out on the council. I bent my face to hide a smile. In less than a minute, she had explained the situation better than anyone else who had spoken within the last three hours. She was right, too. Did it really matter who led the army, or where the old man or the cannon came from, or what powers the pendant had? All we really had to know was the facts. The noobs are taking over runescape and the old man is involved. How easy and uncomplicated. Comparing her with Kryarn, what a difference.

I wiped the grin off my face and lifted my head to look at the rest of the council. King Aurthur looked horrified. Sir Gawain was muttering something about women attending councils. Adrilor's head was bent towards the table; making his face impossible to see. Merlin looked stunned. He opened his mouth to speak, but it was a few seconds before he actually did.

"Well. Yes, quite. As I was saying... The enemy is at Burthorpe, and they're really no immediate threat there. In the morning, we'll post guards at the mountain passes. For now, I deem this council finished. I hope you've all received answers to you're many questions, now you should rest and meditate on what you have learnt. Goodnight."

Chatter broke out across the table. The attendants rose and headed off towards different corridors; in the directions of their rooms. Adrilor lifted his face, now making little attempt to check the laughter that was echoing from it. King Arthur rose and grabbed Merlin by one arm and led him over to the throne, where he broke out into a wild rant. Passing them, I heard the King saying, "It's an outrage, I tell you! An absolute scandal! And you..." I headed toward my rooms.

It was some distance to my room, but I knew the way. I reached the door, and was about to enter when I thought of something and changed direction. I walked across the corridor to Parrea's room.

I knocked, then entered. Parrea was sitting on her bed; she rose as I opened the door. She spoke before I had a chance to talk.

"Are you going to tell me that I was stupid at the council? I don't care damit. It was freezing cold and how annoying is it to have those 'Sirs' go on for two whole hours about how many pretty helpless ladies they've saved? And how many dragon's they've killed? What did the dragons ever do to them? And why weren't the damsels capable of saving themselves? If they couldn't, they should've stayed in the tower. What's an old magician doing stealing princesses and locking them in towers for anyway? So he can watch men in, in tin suits rescue them? If any of those stories were true, I'll swallow my dagger and put my armor back on the dragon it came from."

She completed her tirade. "Why are you here anyway?" she questioned.

Actually, now that I think of it, I don't know. I just thought... "No, you weren't stupid at the council and it was real funny to see the council members react to you're leaving. Anyway, thanks for ending it there. It would've gone on longer than that if you hadn't walked off."

She grinned. "Well thanks, I guess."

I remembered King Arthur. "King Arthur wasn't really impressed though. And neither were his knights. They..."

"God who cares about them? The shiny men that slay innocent beasts and steal stupid ladies from magicians! The only thing they can do right is talk."

"You should care about them." I said, with some admiration. "They're housing you, and it's gonna be really hard going if you got them as well as the noobs on your back."

She sighed. "Well, can we talk about it tomorrow? I'm real tired now. Half the reason why I walked out."

"Ok." I said. "Goodnight." I walked out and closed the door. Before I did so, I heard her echo my last word. I crossed the corridor to my room. I entered, took my armor off and fell into bed. I was asleep within the next few minutes.


	8. Three Against Many

Chapter Seven

Three against Many

"Perhaps you shouldn't have walked out last night."

Adrilor had walked over to us during breakfast. The conversation topics around us were all centered on the same thing: Parrea's exit from the council. Complete strangers had walked up to us and congratulated her on several occasions this morning already. On the other hand, other complete strangers had walked up and reprimanded her on her actions.

And now Adrilor was here, saying basically the same thing to Parrea that I had told her the other night.

"King Arthur won't forget this, in his mind it amounts to nothing less than sacrilege. You really don't want him as your enemy. But I thank you anyway - the look on the human's faces was worth attending, just for that."

"Thanks for that. I've heard stuff like it since last night." Replied Parrea.

The elf shrugged. "Not from me until now. And Zanathir, apologies for last night; I was tired and bored of listening to proud human's lies. Forgive me."

"Ok, sure. You're forgiven." I replied. There was something about this elf, like he was open and a really nice person and he wasn't racist against humans. I didn't think so anyway. After a moment's hesitation I asked, "Friends?"

He smiled, and took my proffered hand. "Friends."

At that moment, King Arthur thumped his fist on the table, calling for silence. Adrilor swiftly moved back to his own seat. As soon as everyone was seated and silent, King Arthur commented on the previous nights' events.

"Last night marked an important historical event. It was to be the council that would decide the fate of Runescape. We had discussed and answered much, but many, many more things needed to be discussed before the council could be closed. And this was a traditional meeting, a council of the knights of the round table. Councils of this manner are to be ended by the ruling king only. Not by a wayward, impatient guest..."

Ah, no. I could see where this was going. The king was still talking:

"...So, considering the utmost importance of this council, thus the scale of the crime dealt unto it by the ranger Parrea who happens to be a damsel, I will refrain from issuing the death penalty. Instead, I grant her two hours freedom before she is treated as an outlaw. Nobody disagrees? Goo..."

"I disagree!" Adrilor's voice rang across the hall. "She was simply tired of your fake human lies and stupid tales. What she did should not be considered as sacrilege, for she did not know that her actions would be considered a crime. And furthe..."

"I AM THE KING!" King Arthur bellowed across the elf's speech. "THIS IS MY COURT! YOU ARE A GUEST LIKE THIS OWTLAWED RANGER HERE! SIT DOWN!"

King Arthur stopped shouting, and calmed himself down slightly. He spoke again. "But, in the stead of the mercy we knights must show to the ignorant, I will grant her freedom if she can get one of my knights to back her up."

He looked around the court. Inwardly, I was laughing like anything. No knights were stepping forward, ready to defend a real damsel in distress. I gave them about a minute, then rose.

"I stand for this ranger that you outlawed. She is free." King Arthur looked frozen. Adrilor snorted and bent to hide his face. My fellow knights looked shocked. "If you will remember, my King, you made me a knight of the round table when I released the wizard Merlin from his crystal prison." I added.

The King's face went red. I had never seen him so angry before. He opened his mouth, and chokingly spat a few words at me.

"If that is so, Sir Zanathir; I release you from my service and the order of the knights. Now you are a guest like the ranger and the elf. In two hours, my knights are permitted to slay her on sight. You, on the other hand, may remain here as my guest. Good day to you all." And he turned and marched out of the hall, closely followed by Merlin.

Lighthearted chatter broke out across the table. Sir Kay laughed evilly and fingered his favorite, heavy mace. People started stealing glances at me and Parrea. Parrea rose and stormed out of the hall towards her own rooms. I waited a few moments, then followed.

"Zanathir wait!" Someone called my name. I turned, and saw Adrilor walking towards me. I waited for him to catch up. "Are you going to follow the ranger?" he asked me.

"Did the King really mean it? That he was going to outlaw Parrea and everything?" I countered. The elf shrugged.

"You would know him better than I, my friend. For one, I think that he meant it. Human's are oft impulsive, and their pride prevents them from turning back." I sighed. "Well, if he did mean it and the knights start chasing Parrea, I'll go with her. She saved my life once."

"It seems then that I am forever doomed to follow the whims of impulsive children." said Adrilor, not impolitely. And he turned and left before I could question his words.

I gained Parrea's room door, I knocked and the door opened. Parrea was standing in her black dragonhide armor, quiver and arrows over her back, dagger in her belt and bow in hand. She was exactly the same as when I first saw her.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I'm... um, can I come with you?" I asked awkwardly. Her eyes widened.

"Zanathir, I've been outlawed! Meaning the whole of the Runescape population are going to hunt me down and destroy me! I'll have so much trouble trying to escape the knights that I won't be able to think about the noobs even!" Her voice was shaking as she spoke.

"Like you said, they're shiny men that talk and do nothing. They'll forget about you soon enough when the noobs arrive anyway. And it's just stupid outlawing you, for just interrupting their council..." I said. I could see liquid tears forming in her eyes. Then she stepped forwards and flung her arms around my neck.

"Thanks Zanathir." she whispered in my ear. Her voice was choking even in a whisper. We stood there for a moment, then she released me.

"I'm ready to leave now, are you?" She asked. I shook my head, and she replied, "I'll wait for you in the Seers church. I'd better leave now - I don't really trust the Sirs to wait two whole hours." I couldn't speak. I just nodded. She turned and walked off.

I returned to my room, and collected my belongings. Within fifteen minutes, I was at Seers bank and storing my heavy armor. I decided that although the noobs were still the largest threat we had to fight, an angry Camelot was still a very considerable problem. I had also decided that whatever the plan was it would include moving around a lot, so I traveled light.

Somehow the idea of me taking charge and creating a plan that didn't involve long distances didn't occur to me then. I've never liked being in charge. Happy enough to follow anyone else's lead - be it king, farmer, troll, god, goblin or guildmaster. I had never imagined myself being in charge of anyone's life that wasn't my own.

I stored everything, except my whip. I withdrew my glory amulet, a few handy teleport runes, a lot of potions such as prayer and energy, and my Guthix cape. The Guthix cape had good protection against magical attacks, and I guessed that I would need that.

My weight considerably lightened, I continued onto the local church. Parrea was already there, and to my confusement, so was Adrilor. The elf smiled as I approached.

"The King has dismissed me, much the same as he did you, Zanathir. I know the peril that we face, and would fight it alongside warriors, not talkative men of past glories."

The King? King Arthur? Dismissed...

"I didn't even know you where employed by the King." I said. Adrilor opened his mouth to reply, but Parrea cut in.

"Can this be discussed somewhere safer? There's a place near here that can be far out of reach of anyone who wants to break in." We consented, and the three of us jogged off south-west under the climbing sun.

A/N: Dragonlord9, I can use your character, just tell me his combat and overall levels, whether he's a ranger, mage or warrior, and if it's a boy or girl. Thanks for your interest in this story )

Also thankyou to the other two people who have read and reviewed this story.


	9. Friends

Chapter Eight

Friends

Two hours later found me at the top of Thormac's tower. Thormac was the wizard who was obsessed with making staffs more powerful and a tiny breed of scorpion. His three scorpions it seemed had escaped twice at different times; sending both me and Parrea on a wild bug hunt to return them again.

Adrilor had explained the full situation to Thormac, and had also included some of his life history - that he had been employed as an undercover agent by King Arthur to spy on Lord Iowerth. He had been dismissed before breakfast earlier that day, for the King had thought his skills were no longer necessary.

"Mayhap the King dismissed me for my friendship with you." The elf added.

"This spell that the old man puts his victims under... it may not be that difficult to execute." Mused Thormac. "It could just be a strong memory loss charm."

"If it were a simple memory charm, the victims would still be able to die." Answered Adrilor.

"True, true... Has anyone actually proven that the victims are immortal once under the spell?" Asked Thormac.

"No, I don't think so..." I trailed off.

"So perhaps if we approached a victim, and intentionally killed him he may wake up in the small town of Lumbridge exactly as he was before the enchantment. He just might..." said Thormac, more to himself than anyone else.

"So... whose going to be the first to wander into territory overrun by noobs, cannons and a magical old man just so they can kill a friend of theirs?" Said Parrea, unhelpfully but realistically explaining the idea.

Inwardly, I sighed. It seemed like a dead end. With a muttered excuse about getting some food, I descended the ladder into Thormac's living area. I reached the bottom, and rested my head against the ladder. I wanted this all to be over now.

"Hey Zanaman, wasup?" Came a cheerful, yet concerned and achingly familiar voice behind me. I turned, and looked into a lightly tanned face surrounded by messy back hair, green eyes standing out as they always have. I stood there for a minute and stared, finding my voice soon after.

"Kryarn!" I shouted, and jumped on him, ecstatic that he was alive, and well it seemed. "Yeah hi dude, its...me." said Kryarn, his voice sounding surprised a little.

My shout had brought the three on the roof down. Thormac and Adrilor stood aside; it was obvious they had no idea who Kryarn was. Parrea stared, a look of shock imprinted on her pale face.

"You're... alive..." she said quietly, almost in a whisper. Kryarn held his arms open, and she ran into them. I felt a sharp feeling, not pain, I don't think anger but it was like anger... Jealousy? No. Never jealousy. I looked away from the two embracing, and my eyes found a shadow, sitting in the corner of the room, placidly observing his surroundings. I smiled. My relief was greater than my instinctive dislike.

"Kysin"

The shadow nodded. I was about to ask him to explain, or someone to explain what... no, how they were both suddenly in this tower when they were supposed to be dead... but Adrilor spoke. Though his voice was quiet and light, it contained a quality that made all else stop and listen to it. Such was a gift of the elven kind.

"Who are you, both of you, to enter Thormac's tower uninvited. You are obviously friends, and good ones I would deem. I believe that there is some tale to your presence, such that bears telling. But you may want rest, first."

"Rest is right. I've been running since Lumbridge I think. So..." Kryarn trailed off into silence.

"Both of you?" said Thormac, squinting in the dimly lit room. He sighted Kysin. "Ah yes. There are rooms below the tower. The table there is enchanted to create whatever food you may need. As soon as you are both rested, please ascend to the roof and tell us all."

"We should talk now, rest later." Came Kysin's deliberate voice.

Kryarn looked startled. "We've been running flat on since when, and he still can go without sleep? Well well well. Good for you, Sinnerguy. As for me, I'm done. I'm going to bed. Talk later."

With that he descended the ladder downwards. Parrea made to follow, but changed her mind and stayed. We all turned towards the shadow in the corner. Kysin looked exhausted, his strength and endurance being far less than Kryarn's. I think it was only his pride that kept him from objecting to rest.

"Are you sure you don't need rest, Kysin?" I asked politely.

Kysin just looked at me, his face more blank and unreadable the Lumbridge castle walls. The awkward silence hung in the air until Adrilor destroyed it, "You both have something to add to the tale of your adventures I think. I now urge you to rest, as we will not hear anything until you are both ready, unless it is urgent." Still without speaking, or making any sound at all, Kysin moved out of the corner and dropped down onto the ground floor.

"Well, there really isn't much we can do until they wake up, but I wouldn't mind one of you explaining who these people are. I mean, they're in my tower and all..." Thormac broke the silence. The three of them climbed the ladder onto the roof. I stayed below, and checked my friends list. Kryarn was on, and so was Alkir. I added Kysin and Adrilor; both names turned up as offline. I assumed that none of them wanted to be found, seeing as they were both spies.

I stared at my friends list for a little longer, and watched as another name flicked 'online'. Within the next half-second I was messaging him.

"Hawkfeather! Where have u been! Where r u now?"

At about the same time that I messaged him, I received a question back. "Where's Varrock? What happened?"

I answered, "I'll explain everything; just get to Thormac's tower now."

"I don't have runes though they're all in the bank" he replied. "And the banks are... buried."

Well... "Don't run whatever u do. Go to Al Kharid, Edgeville, Canifis..."

"Wait its ok I got a dragon ammy. Im going 2 Karamja."

Excellent. Hawkfeather was a good friend, a warrior like myself. He was a pretty good fighter, better than Kryarn even but didn't have Kryarn's infuriating personality and lack of common sense. Whether Hawkfeather was his real name or not, I didn't know. Many people had strange names in Runescape. There were so many... some were composed entirely of numbers. Beside them, Hawkfeather seemed a very normal name to have.

I remembered the countless number of times we had gone hunting together. Dragons in the wilderness of all different colors, the ancient but powerful living dead within large barrows in southern Morytania, the massive insect known as the Kalphite Queen... We had been everywhere together. Basically inseparable once we were both online at the same time.

We had met during Castlewars, a pretend game where players fought under the banner of either Saradomin or Zamorak, and attempted to capture their opponent's flag while destroying their opponents at the same time. He had been for Zamorak, I had been for Saradomin. Both of us had entered the Guthix portal, which placed us on random teams. We were a similar level combat-wise, and spent the entire time attempting to beat each other up. None of us actually won; I killed him, he came straight back and killed me before I could heal myself properly, I came back and the fight began again...

At the end of it we both went on the same team, and had been friends ever since. Hawkfeather was a born leader, a strategist who had an almost elvish gift of making himself heard and obeyed. Although our Castlewars teams were often weaker than our opponents, we always managed to win thanks to his planning and leadership. With him helping... this war would be so much easier. He'd take charge, and he'd work everything out, make us win. Such was my faith in him, though not ill-founded.

The sun was glowing with a pale light, illuminating the towers and activity in the ranger's guild. Kryarn and Kysin were refreshed, and recovered fully from their journey. Hawkfeather had arrived and been introduced. Apparently he already knew Kryarn... but then, most people already knew Kryarn. We were once again located on the roof, with Adrilor asking Kryarn and Kysin to explain everything, from Nora's house till now.

"Well, I was fighting all these noobs and standing there holding the gate shut, with them poking sharp things into my back, noobs are like kids you know - shouldn't be given sharp toys cause they can hurt others..." Kryarn was talking, explaining exactly what happened when I interrupted.

"Yes we know all that, but what happened after the mysterious old man enchanted you?"

"Well I dunno really. God those noobs are strong, and one of their mages actually knew how to cast entangle! A level 20 noob mage how awesome is that? Anyway I was counting the seconds and the old man put his finger on my head and I blacked out I think. Anyway next thing I know is I'm in Lumbridge and Kysin, he's is telling me to hurry up, we're moving. And then we were moving. I was real tired through the whole thing but Kysin wouldn't stop, he just ran faster. And there's me trying to catch him... Not easy you know, catching Kysin here. And it's all dark and then it's light again and I'm like fully lost now but Kysin's still running and we get to the church place in that village back there, you know, the one with all the old guys in white dressing gowns I forget the name... And then for the first time since Lumby Kysin walks. And he walks all the way out here. And then we stop and see you and... yeah..." Kryarn lamely finished his versions of the story.

Well, at least it was short. I guessed that we would be sitting here for the next few hours listening to Kysin now. In the same, deliberate tone Kysin used always except on one occasion, he explained how he had successfully entered Burthorpe, and dismantled the cannon. He was explaining where he put the cannon stand when a crow flew off. There were always crows around Thormac's tower, didn't like to think why. As soon as Kysin had revealed where he had hidden the cannon stand, a crow flew off and away. I didn't think much off it at the time; I don't think any of us hardly noticed. Except Adrilor, who stared after the crow as it flew away, a look of confusement on his fair face.

Kysin had finally gotten to the part where he was sprinting through the heroes guild, when Helemos had killed him and sent him straight to Lumbridge. His slow, hypnotizing voice rolled into the gathering darkness, taking us on a journey far from Thormac's tower, deep into Zamorak's land the wilderness.


	10. Al Kharid

Chapter Nine

Al Kharid

While Zanathir fought the noobs, traveled to Camelot, slept and witnessed the council, Kysin had received a killing blow from a dragon battleaxe, respawned at Lumbridge and was attempting to make his way back to safe territory again.

Kysin remembered being inside the heroes guild, then the sharp pain through his back, then... The moment he arrived at the site of the late village Lumbridge, he heard shouts. He opened his eyes, and saw the same darkness that had aided him in Burthorpe. The shouts he had heard, and was hearing; they were not friendly he knew. He dropped to the ground and began to move quickly, snake-like, away from the ruined village.

He had died. Of that much he was sure. He checked his belongings, and inwardly he cursed. He hoped that whoever had killed him got poisoned somehow and died a long painful death from the darts he had left behind. His dagger was there, and so was Zanathir's pendant. Around him, he heard the thrum of bows, then the clatter of arrows hitting stone, hitting the place where he had just recently respawned.

He moved east.

Al Kharid gates were down, and guarded. Several noobs had obviously plundered Falador, or somehow gotten full initiate armor that was normally worn by the white knights of Falador. This, in the pitch darkness, made them as luminous as the moon itself. (Which was hidden behind deep clouds this night.) Dodging them easily, Kysin dashed through the ruined fence and into what was once the capital town of Al Kharid.

He knew where the bank should be, and surprisingly it was there, lit up from the inside illuminating the gold sand around it. Further away from the light, the sand grayed until it was the same shade as the air around it. Obviously the noobs had to bank their stuff somewhere. Kysin had spare darts in his bank account, he knew that. Getting closer, he saw that, predictably, the banks were guarded. By noobs wearing an assortment of robes and armor, patrolling the perimeter of the bank. All of them had the lurid pink H.A.M hood, effectively hiding their faces from view. He crouched in the ruins, resting against a marbled chunk of stone that once supported the palace roof.

He was facing the bank doors now. Through the doors, he could see only one noob inside... noob? The girl inside was no noob... she was almost as good a fighter as he was. Which brought attention to the levels of the four patrolling guards. Combat levels 34, 28, 31 and 30. These weren't really noobs, these were pretty good fighters.

The level 28 noob marched past, intent just on completing his watch. In just another hour of boring marching, he could rest. He could go camp with the others in the old H.A.M. (Humans Against Monsters) headquarters that they had cleared out. His friend Jhonny would've cooked him dinner. He would eat, and sleep. All he wanted to do was finish his rounds so he could go and eat, sleep. Patrolling the bank was the worst...

He didn't get to finish his thought. A dark shape appeared out of nowhere. The level 28 opened his mouth to scream, and a sharp blade entered it. He tried to pull away. The dagger went straight through the back of his mouth and into his neck. 28 tasted blood, and something else... He was in Lumbridge before he knew that he had tasted poison.

Kysin pulled his blade free, and shrank against the bank wall. The steady sound of heavy feet on sand was coming. In a moment another noob would come around the corner and see the armor his friend had left behind... Kysin left it as long as possible, then darted into the bank and over the counter. He fell noiselessly onto the floor and held his dagger against the startled banker's leg.

"I'm not here." he breathed, holding his dagger steady to emphasize the point.

The level 49 noob inside would've seen him, but she blinked. Instead, she felt a breeze as he passed her. The night had been still before. She shrugged. Just a change in weather... She looked around at the only banker on duty that night. Hang on, this wasn't right...

"I want to access my bank account" Kysin told the banker, by mouthing the words and hand gestures.

"Cer...certainly s..sir" gulped the banker.

He opened Kysin's bank account, from which Kysin withdrew several poisoned black darts. He closed his bank account, and swapped his dagger for a dart. With the dart pointed at the banker, Kysin made to jump over the counter and sprint out the way he had come.

BAM!

Kysin was frozen with shock. He knew what he heard; the double doors of the bank closing... Cautiously, he rose and took in the bank's interior within a second. There was only one person in the bank besides the banker and himself. The level 49 noob. She was holding a vicious curved scimitar, its blue rune metal glowing a deadly white against the bank's lighting. Upon sighting Kysin, she barked some orders. Kysin understood what she had said, and hurled himself at the nearest window.

A two-handed sword entered the window from the outside. Kysin gracefully moved to avoid it, pressing himself up in the corner. There were two windows, now both had a hooded noob guarding it; his two-hander poking through from the outside. There was no way anyone was getting out through those windows, even one such as Kysin.

"Captain Leafdarking, what's happening?" asked one of the noobs outside, his confusion hidden behind his bright hood.

Leafdarking didn't answer. Instead, she lunged at Kysin, her gleaming rune scimitar slashing the floor where he had been. She lifted her weapon, swung it in an arc (almost chopping off the banker's head as she did so) and brought it down into the chair that Kysin had been crouching behind. As she struggled to pull her sword free, Kysin saw his chance. With all his strength he pulled the doors open, and ran. He didn't stop running until he was through the northern entrance of Al Kharid.

Leafdarking stared into the darkness where her enemy had disappeared. Taking out her friends list, she messaged Luthandros. Luthandros was a powerful noob, about as good a fighter as herself. He was easily more powerful than those he fought with, more so than some he fought under. He could've been a captain, commander, a leader in the army... if he were more responsible and less lazy. Instead, he was a thief. Someone who took other people's hard earned goods, and lived off that.

"Luthandros, there's this guy who just robbed the Al Kharid bank. How long til you can get here?" she messaged.

His reply was instant, "I'm in the wildy now...hang on... be there soon..."

He was there soon. Very soon. In about two minutes soon. Leafdarking's eyes narrowed as he approached.

"That's a bit to fast for someone who can't teleport." she greeted him suspiciously.

"Ah well... you know how touchy the others are. Geeze, I just shoved this one down a slope, no injury or nothing, and that was excuse enough for his friend to poke me guts out."

"I see..." she said. "Well, there's this guy who just broke into and robbed this bank. He ran off, north. He's pretty fast, and almost invisible in this darkness so you might want to wait until morning. But he's really gotta be caught... can you do it?"

"You let him get away?" Luthandros asked, incredulously.

Leafdarking didn't bite. "This guy's like smoke I swear. He ran straight past me when I blinked, like he was waiting for it or something. And he got out past me and four elite guards, killing only one of them... man, good luck if you can catch him. I think you can though. It's not like we got much better in this army."

Luthandros looked out at the dark, intimidating night. "I'll chase him in the morning."


	11. Stay Away From the Wilderness

Chapter Ten

Stay Away from the Wilderness...

Scorpions lived within the rocky pit near the northern entrance of the greatest desert land in Runescape. Through their many feet, they could feel another creature's movement, the gods only know how far. Their dusty armored bodies roamed the wasteland, searching for prey, anything from rats to heroes. Anything that moved. Some of them near the far north-west of the desert paused in their hunting. They felt footsteps, footsteps coming nearer. Their knowledge, small in most areas but greater than any other's in the way of footsteps, told them that a human was coming. And coming fast. The lightweight footsteps indicated a small human, their limited memory told them that all humans are tough enemies. They scuttled away, in search of better prey.

These simple hunters sensed what the few tired noobs guarding Al Kharid's northern entrance didn't. Kysin encountered no difficulty whatsoever in speeding past the guards and continuing his journey northwards.

Once out of Al Kharid he slowed his breakneck sprint to a steady lope. At this pace he could continue for a long time, hopefully long enough to find a safe place to wait out the day. By the next night, he would be ready to jog the rest of the way back to safety. Safety, he guessed would be somewhere west of White Wolf Mountain. Like Camelot. How long could the Burthorpe army hold out?

His intentions were to enter the wilderness, and turn west. When faced with the troll infested mountains bordering the western edge of the wilderness he would turn south to Burthorpe, then get out onto troll plateau like he had done earlier that night. From there, he would take one of the many paths west through the mountains to the Fremmenik province. It was only a short, safe sprint south-east to Camelot from there.

Perhaps he was forgetting what had happened the last time he had let his attention waver, or maybe he was still charged from his escape. Or perhaps he simply wasn't expecting noobs to rig up any trap past a brightly-colored, giggling ambush. Whatever the reason, he wasn't paying enough attention to where his feet was going. He knew that he had passed the borders of the wilderness, for the ground beneath his feet had gone softer, more muddy. His swift lope gave him momentum, so when the trap was sprung he was suspended horizontally, as if flying for a moment. Then he fell to the ground, hitting the mud with his face and chest. He relaxed his muscles, and he was pulled off the ground to hang suspended, upside-down in the air. For a moment, all was quiet. Kysin was purposefully not breathing. And no noobs ever really had the ability to be quiet.

With his hands, Kysin explored the trap. He felt the rope, a perfect noose that had been pulled tight around his left ankle. His fingers began to work at the noose, pulling it open. It was a fairly simple trap when he thought about it. A flexible tree with a short rope fastened to it's top branches. The other end of the rope forming a noose, and lying on the ground bordering a small depression in the ground. The noose was held down by a number of small, delicate twigs. As soon as a heavy enough creature stepped within the noose, it would break the flimsy wooden anchor allowing the tree to spring back into it's original position taking rope, noose, and anything now trapped within the noose up with it.

It was a very well-made noose. Every time Kysin rested his figures, the noose would snap shut again around his ankle. But now he had it. Just a few little seconds more...

His whole body went rigid. Every muscle locked still. Against the back of his neck, was the unmistakable cold, smooth feeling of a sharp blade.

"I'm going to let you down. When I do, don't run or scream or else my knives will be in you're back and you will be in big trouble in Lumbridge for abandoning you're post." This voice, and the sharp blade belonged to the same person. Kysin relaxed and breathed slowly, trying to control his heartbeat. Yes, he knew this voice. He knew the person who owned it. He knew that this person was no noob. But he would've preferred it to be a noob...

"Bio, shut up and take you're knife off me." Kysin instructed. The blade was instantly removed.

"Kysin? Is that really you? You're caught in a trap?" The voice asked incredulously.

'No you idiot, I just found this rope and decided it would be interesting to tie it to the tree and my leg... fking hell you are such a fool kid.' Kysin thought. He didn't say anything. With one last tug, the noose widened enough to release him. He fell unceremoniously to the muddy ground , where he quickly rose and began following his northward course.

"Hey Kysin, wait!" The 'fool kid' was calling. "I found another guy, he's real talkative and he says that he knows you... Did you actua..."

"What other guy?" Kysin said sharply, cutting off Bio's words. The night had been a hard and frustrating one even by his standards, and it was beginning to take it's toll on his manner.

"Oh the other guy who came up here earlier, he walked straight into my net-trap that could hold..." Upon hearing Kysin's low growl, Bio continued. "Anyway, he's back at the outpost not far... you wanna come?"

Well it's not like Kysin had anywhere better to stay. "Ok kid. Get moving."

Bio walked off north-east, with Kysin easily following the sounds of his footsteps.

Bio's real name was Biohazardluver, but that was shortened by basically everyone into Bio. He was a weak fighter by many standards, but he knew the wilderness like he knew his traps. Bio basically lived in the wilderness, so now knew his way around it better than anyone else, better than even Kysin perhaps. He was pretty smart and resourceful; his traps and outposts were small, simple yet they worked and worked effectively. Since he had learnt of the noob invasion (he had known since he watched Varrock burn) he had filled the lower levels of the wilderness with endless traps created from ropes, rubble, holes, sticks, trees... He had also added 'fortifications' to his tiny outposts. Meaning that there was only one winding path through about twenty meters of solid traps to his outpost. Yet Kysin abhorred the guy.

For the simple reason that Bio hero-worshipped Kysin. Ever since Bio had first met Kysin, his aim had been to be like him. In his eyes, Kysin was perfect. Fast, stealthy, mercenary, calm, smooth... Kysin was everything that Bio wanted to be. So far Bio worshiped the same God as Kysin (Zaros) and carried the same hand weapon. Kysin didn't like being worshipped. Worshipped means stalked, watched, observed... That was for heroes, legends, the knights of Camelot, paladins of Ardougne... not for a thief, not for one who killed people in their sleep, not for him.

Bio's nearest outpost turned out to be a ruined Zamorak shrine, on an island almost entirely surrounded by lava. The molten stone gave off enough light for Kysin to pick out traps here and there... a bit of rope, some disturbed soil... He followed Bio's sure footsteps exactly.

Once inside the ruins, Bio opened a trapdoor and dropped down into the lighted room below, with Kysin following.

"Hey Kysin! Long time it's been ay!" Kysin closed his eyes. What are the odds of being stuck in the wilderness with a loudmouthed idiot and a little kid wannabe. He opened his eyes again. Nothing had changed. Bio was standing awkwardly at the side and Kryarn was sitting on a bed that looked like it belonged to a lesser demon some hundred years previous.

"Dude where the hek have you been? I haven't seen you since you were a level 21 noob guy! Guthix you've grown. And now you're here, why are you here anyway? Did Bio trap you? He trapped me. I was dangling there someways northwards of Edgeville and theres this bunch of noobs throwing rocks at me. I caught some of the rocks, threw 'em back hard, but most missed me anyway. And there's me hanging there and I'm thinking Kryarn, you stay away from the wilderness now. It's a dangerous place. Some level 92 guy told me that when I was a real little guy with a wooden shield and a bronzed sword, that's what he said to me. 'You stay away from the wilderness cause it's very dangerous.' But then Bio came al..."

Kysin turned his back on Kryarn's recital and went outside. Disliking Bio as much as he did, he wasn't about to hear the kid become a hero anytime soon. There he rested the remainder of the night and most of the day out, in a corner of the ruins where sunlight never really penetrated.


	12. Siege by Crows

Chapter Eleven

Siege by Crows

"And of the rest of the journey, there is little to tell. We arose at dawn, and took the path I had planned to take. East to the Fremmenik province, then south to here. Bio stayed in the Wilderness, but he said that he'd always be there to help us. He also said that he had escorted a barbarian warlord along the same path some days earlier to Rekella, one that went by the name of Gunthor."

How long had we sat on the roof listening to Kysin? The scene was lit now entirely by the glowing orbs of Thormac's staff collection, the sun having descended a fair while ago.

"Well, I for one am too tired to think and dwell on what has been said this night. I bid you all a good night." Thormac descended the ladder and was swallowed by the pure darkness below. His words seemed true for all of us, because we all followed his path downwards, into the underground bunkhouse.

I was lying in bed, barely awake, staring into the dark ground somewhere above my face when I heard Kryarn's hushed voice from across the room.

"Zanathir! Are you awake?"

"Yeah, almost."

"Do you still have my friends list?"

"Yes, Ill give it to ya in the morning. Go to sleep."

I heard him get out of bed and walk over towards me. I heard his footsteps coming nearer, then a thud and a hushed yelp of pain quickly followed by Kryarn talking, very loud and fast,

"No don't hurt me I won't hurt you get off me stop please don't send me to lumby get off me now! Oh... sorry Kysin, it's just real dark..."

Kysin muttered an unprintable word. From the bed beside me, Adrilor chuckled.

"Whas happening?" Came Parrea's sleep-ridden voice.

"Just go back back to sleep the lot of you." Hawkfeather.

"Zana, can I have my friends list back now?" Kryarn was standing right beside my bed.

I found the list, and gave it to him.

"Dude, did you use this list to..." Kryarn lowered his voice to a whisper in response to Kysin's hissed 'Shut up' "...get Parrea and Kysin? Then why didn't you get Morak as well?"

"He wouldn't come." I answered. "Go to sleep."

"Ok, I'll talk to him. I'm going to the roof."

Alright Kryarn, just be safe, quiet and don't step on the little scorpions. His footsteps crossed the room, this time without tripping over anyone or anything, and ascended the ladder.

I think I fell asleep sometime after that, but I don't remember. The next thing I really knew was light flooding the bunkhouse, coming from the torches in the wall brackets. I sat up in bed, and looked groggily around me. Kysin and Adrilor had disappeared entirely. Parrea was still in bed, looking exactly how I felt. Hawkfeather was standing over... Kryarn. A bleeding, injured Kryarn.

I got out of bed and grabbed my whip, steadying myself against the wall as the scene swum before my tired eyes. I walked over to Kryarn and Hawkfeather, but something green lying amongst Kysin's possessions (borrowed from Thormac) grabbed my attention...

'Thief' I thought of Kysin as I reclaimed my pendant from his belongings.

"Do you have any food?" Questioned Hawkfeather as I approached them. No, I didn't. I knelt and looked at Kysin. It looked as if something had stabbed him, hard with many large sharp needles. Blood was pouring freely from holes in his skin. He looked very close to Lumbridge...

"Does anyone have any food?" Hawkfeather repeated his question, more urgently. Parrea had joined us by now.

"The table!" She said, and walked towards it. Apparently there was an inscription written along one edge of the large table, because Parrea observed the edge carefully before rapping three times in the center of the table with her knuckles and saying clearly, "Four cooked sharks."

Kryarn screamed. His bloodshot eyes were staring at the ladder, and the open trapdoor above...

There was a crow perched on one of the ladder's rungs. The average garden crow, the farmers curse. It might've been just me, just an imaginative illusion, but I thought I saw it staring intently at Parrea as she summoned four cooked sharks from the table. As soon as Kryarn screamed, it spread its wings and flew off into the early morning.

Parrea brought the sharks over to our injured friend. "Here eat this. It'll make you feel better." Kryarn took the sharks, and ate them all. In front of our eyes, his condition improved dramatically. Well-cooked food is a strange miracle.

"The crows... they attacked... they came from the west and they attacked me..." Kryarn spoke. "Since when do crows attack people anyway? And Morak's being very strange... Met him wandering around in the Underground Pass. He'd been listening to Iban too much, freaky place that pass is, and Iban's voice gets in everywhere even through earmuffs 'cause I tried them to block Iban out... He believed everything Iban was saying, and had sworn his allegiance to Zamorak, and to guard the Pass when I met him. We became friends, of sorts, he even helped me defeat Iban just so he could rule the underground pass alone... For the love of light I dunno why anyone would wanna rule that place... And he's not coming, he's being stranger than usual, more secretive. But anyway he's sending his apprentice to help us. A mage called DarknessDie. Should be here soon, if he can get past the crows..."

'Crows...?' I thought. Instead I asked where Kysin and Adrilor was.

"Kysin has gone to aid Darkness Die; I haven't seen Adrilor since last night." Hawkfeather said.

When Kryarn had left to message Kysin, Adrilor had followed. He knew many useful little spells that mortals didn't know of, such as invisibility. He whispered the incantation and climbed the ladder; stealth of the elves making him soundless, the spell rendering him unseen.

He had seen Kryarn's futile attempts to persuade Morak, he had watched the crows attack. He had recited charms that would calm a normal bird, but none of them worked. Only elves knew how to command crows on such a large scale as this... Only elves could create a spell that his incantations couldn't break... And a powerful elf at that. But which elf, that was a good question.

Through muttering a very powerful spell of summoning and gesturing towards a single crow as he spoke, Adrilor was able to call the bird to himself. He held it tightly, and stared into it's eyes, for behind the eyes lie the most conscious thoughts of all living creatures... So the old elf taught the young ones, in the days when Guthix stopped the war centuries ago.

Almost an hour later, Adrilor was still on the roof, clutching the same crow in his hands. He had explored the bird's simple mind as much as he could. He knew everything now that the crow remembered. The crow had been ordered to come to this tower, and attack all living creatures within it, except those within my favor... Once the tower was devoid of living creatures, the crow was to return home.

Hard as he tried, Adrilor couldn't discover where 'home' was, or who was within whose favor. Whoever it was, the crows would leave them alone. Obviously not Kryarn. Adrilor gave up. A crows mind was too simple, it's memory too small to remember everything. He released the crow, which flew upwards slightly, and hovered over Adrilor. The fact that he was still invisible saved him.

The trapdoor leading to the bunkhouse was shut, and locked. Adrilor whispered a spell of unlocking, and let himself fall downwards. As soon as he hit the floor, he sprang back up and locked the trapdoor against the crows that had been perched in a nearby tree seconds ago, the crows that were now approaching at a fast and noisy pace.

It wasn't long after Kryarn recovered that the crows started coming. They swarmed in through the open trapdoor until Hawkfeather pulled it shut and bolted it locked. It was a small task, but nonetheless difficult to kill off the forty-odd crows in the room. They were fast and small, rendering my whip almost useless. I needed a target that would stay in basically the same place for at least a second, and an open space to swing the whip in. I had neither. So I held the large arrow-shaped tip in my hand and proceeded to gash the little black enemies with that.

Hawkfeather had a dragon scimitar; a well-balanced lightweight weapon that was perfectly suited to the surrounding battle. I think he was the only one who didn't get maimed at all by the sharp beaks and clawed feet, so great was his accurate skill with his weapon.

I would've felt safer, much safer if Parrea had chosen to use her dagger, especially as she had just woken up and wasn't fully alert yet. Instead she used her bow. Crows fell in a lot of places, bronze arrows protruding out of them. She was good with that bow, there was no way I could've hit any crows at the speed they were traveling at. Yet she killed many enemies and missed all friends.

Kryarn as usual, was totally weaponless and improvised by using a pillow to smash the crows away from him. The force of his blows actually stunned a few; he stamped on their motionless bodies. I never found out why he didn't go for one of the battlestaffs standing in the corner... but then, that's Kryarn.

Mostly thanks to Hawkfeather and Parrea, all the crows inside the room were soon motionless, feathered corpses. Like everything else living in Runescape, these crows had the respawning gift. The corpses lay there for only seconds, before disappearing into thin air. The crows would live again at their original site. We all collected the bones, and buried them in a large hole in the room.

A loud, sharp noise made me whirl around to face the trapdoor. Somehow, the bolt locking it had shot off and the trapdoor was standing open. Through the open trapdoor, I heard the raucous crowing of the little black birds outside. Holding his scimitar ready, Hawkfeather strode towards the trapdoor. Parrea drew her bow and notched a rune arrow. Before Hawkfeather even reached the trapdoor, it swung shut again and Adrilor materialized directly below it.

Adrilor quickly explained where he had been, what he had done. I became aware of just how powerful a friend had followed us from Camelot. Why had such a one followed us? I silently wondered.

"Can everyone here teleport to Ardougne?" Hawkfeather posed the question. We all could, except Adrilor who was unfamiliar with our magic spells. Everyone had anticipated a fair amount of teleporting, so had brought plenty of runes.

"Kryarn, message Kysin and tell him to meet us at the Ardougne shipyards. Adrilor, can you make yourself invisible or something, and meet us there?" Hawkfeather ordered. No one questioned. Just obeyed. I hoped Thormac would be ok without us...

Moments later I was in the middle of Ardougne marketplace. It was uncanny, life was here still going on. The stall keepers were yelling their wares into people's faces, thieves were attempting to steal when the shopkeeper's back was turned, and various ranks of the Ardougne militia were bringing their weapons down hard on the thieves' heads. It was as if no one knew of the noobs in the east, or the crows from the west.

Hawkfeather and Parrea were standing nearby, looking at the marketplace in a similar state of disbelief. Kryarn...

"Where's Kryarn?" I asked of the others. He certainly wasn't in the marketplace.

"I saw him teleport, he should be here. It's not like he could've gotten lost while teleporting or anything." Said Parrea.

"What... it... it's actually not impossible..." Hawkfeather's face had whitened. "I mean, it happened once before. A Zamorak mage apprentice made a mistake while teleporting... instead of going to his chosen destination, he remained in a different dimension somewhere in between. It's not really easy to make such a mistake; that Zamorak mage was the first one that did it, and it took them thousands of attempts to do it again."


	13. Fear Precedes Rage

Chapter Twelve

Fear Precedes Rage

Kryarn passed Hawkfeather's order onto Kysin, then stretched his arms out and concentrated. A purple shield surrounded him, and he shrunk. He had experienced this strange feeling before. He shut his eyes, and concentrated hard on Ardougne marketplace.

On his first few attempts at teleportation, curiosity had kept his eyes wide open during movement. On the quick journey between two different places, he had glimpsed a dull red, nightmarish world.

After a few times of viewing this place from the speed of teleportation, he had been able to pick out creatures, strange creatures the same tone of blood as their surroundings. But eventually, fear had overcome curiosity. Kryarn naturally feared what he didn't understand, and what he saw were enough to invoke fear in the known Gods themselves. He had long since learned to keep his eyes closed.

This time was the same as any other. Kryarn outstretched his arms, closed his eyes and shrunk. He felt himself spin through space, and land. Even with his eyes closed, it was now he sensed that something was wrong. The ground beneath his feet, it wasn't the hard pavement of Ardougne marketplace; it was soft like a snail's dead body.

Cautiously he opened one eye a fraction. A world of red swum before his vision... He snapped his eyes open wide, taking in the scene that had haunted his dreams since he had teleported for the very first time.

Kryarn was a level 79 warrior. He had survived demon-hunts, dragons, ghosts, undead brothers, crows, traps, poison... He had braved them all fearlessly. But he had never liked bugs, or spiders. One only had to suggest a Kalphite-hunt to watch his face pale into light green. His nightmares were filled with spiders, especially the huge black one in the underground pass... Morak had eventually consented to slay the beast for him.

And this place... it reminded him horribly of the Kalphite Queen's lair, even with the dull red overlying everything. On the ground... near him he could see... it wasn't the ground... it was things... little red things that were approaching him fast. To Kryarn, these creatures definitely came under the heading of 'scary bugs'. Frightened as he was, Kryarn reacted like almost anyone would to such fear. He screamed. Loud and high.

He looked around at the void in which he had landed. That which he had at first taken to be large lumps of, for lack of better word, ground was moving. Kryarn shrank bank against the squishy wall, his mouth open, terror preventing his scream from continuing. The lumps were moving, they were rising. And they had legs and a head... and eyes... that were turned towards the human yell that had invaded their territory.

Noticing Kryarn, by sight, sound or smell, they advanced upon him. Too scared to scream, too terrified to fight or run, Kryarn sat there and stared at the aliens approaching. But fear lends wings to everyone's feet, allowing us to run much faster than we would normally. And desperation works in the same way, on our minds. The simple answer may have seemed obvious to most, but most are not distracted by the sight of aggressive blood-red aliens.

Grabbing out a random handful of runes, Kryarn outstretched his arms, and shrunk. He got one last glimpse of a large mechanical head towering over him, and the floor wriggling with hundreds of thirsty leeches. A scene that he would unwillingly recall for the rest of his time. Then it was gone. Gone, replaced with a small town square, dominated by a demolished building in the middle of a moat.

Falador. Even when ruined, it was not hard to recognize this once-beautiful city. Heart beating wildly from the shock he had just received, Kryarn pulled out four runes, intending to continue on to Ardougne. He was about to teleport when the memory returned. Mechanical aliens, bugs in a world of blood... Pocketing the runes, Kryarn decided that he'd rather walk than risk facing that again. To the south there was Port Sarim; the ship would take him to Karamja where he would cross to Brimhaven and take the boat to Ardougne from there.

Negotiating his way around stones, bricks and splintered wood, Kryarn journeyed in the general direction of Port Sarim.

As soon as he was out of the deserted ruins of Falador, Kryarn broke into a run. He passed the farmhouse, which was still erect and untouched. Ahead of him he could see Port Sarim... or what once was Port Sarim. The sea port hadn't changed much since Zanathir had visited it less than a week ago. Wormbrain and Redbeard Frank were the only two living creatures there. Their heads were down, both of them. Wandering about aimlessly. Unbidden, a fleeting memory sprang to Kryarn's mind... a noob level 5 archer... firing a bronze arrow at his throat... him standing there helpless and uncaring...

And then he had woken up in Falador, where he had traveled north to Edgeville, and from there into the wilderness where he met Bio and Kysin. After trying to wake the pirate and the goblin, Kryarn realized that the only possible way to bring them back to their normal state of mind...

Powerful as he was, Kryarn hated, and avoided entirely, killing or attacking defenseless creatures. But it might've been his recent scare in the abyss, or the realization that they would thank him for it later, or a combination of all the events that had occurred throughout the previous week that made him do it. He locked his hands around Redbeard Frank's throat, and squeezed hard. The pirate stared up at him with shallow, uncaring eyes as Kryarn, sickened by what he was doing, throttled the life out of him.

It seemed an age to Kryarn, but was less than a minute, before the pirate shuddered and went limp. Kryarn pulled his hands away and jumped back, horrified at what he had just done. The corpse lay there for a minute and disappeared, leaving a handful of bones. Kryarn gave a shuddering sigh of relief and buried the bones. He looked over at Wormbrain and decided not to strangle the goblin. It wasn't like he was missing out on much, or worth the same anyway.

"Arr matey! What'a you done to me rum?" Kryarn jumped slightly, the voice coming from directly behind him.

"Um...rum? I haven't done anything... Hey do you have a ship, or a boat or something to take me to Karamja?" Kryarn answered to Frank's question.

"Arr Karamja. Good rum thems 'ave got over thar, the very bestest. Wouldn't 'ave gotten ye old mate Frank some more o' the good stuff would ye?"

Kryarn took a deep breathe. He had found the pirate's weakness, and now was the time to appeal to it.

With a disarmingly self-confident smile, Kryarn clapped the pirate on the shoulder and said, "Between you and me mate, the ship to Karamja, it ain't coming to Port Sarim no more, cause there's no Port Sarim left for it to come to. And the pub here, it's gone as any little peeper could show ye. There's really a nasty chance o' any good stuff here... But Karamja, it's got a good pub there I hear tell. Let's go to Karamja, the both of us... once we get there, I'll buy ye the best rum on the whole island."

The pirate stood there, and blinked. Kryarn's mounting frustration, mingled with fear and horror was well-hidden, deep inside the smiling, self-confident youth that the pirate saw.

For all of another ten minutes Kryarn stood there, smiling. Gesturing, trying to persuade one far duller than himself. All Kryarn's effort was going into concealing his real emotions, and convey entirely different ones to the pirate with the one-track mind standing before him. Redbeard Frank, well, his mind was as always, on his drink.

Thus none of them noticed the lithe little figure crouching down behind the wall that separated Port Sarim from Draynor village.

Luthandros had trailed Kysin's tracks northwards to the point of entering the wilderness itself. He had gone about fourteen steps into that cursed land before his leg was jerked upwards exactly the same as Kysin's had been. Unlike Kysin though, Luthandros didn't believe in leaving things exactly how he had found them. Pulling out his rune scimitar, he had slashed viciously at the rope until it gave way and he crashed to the ground. This event was enough to deter him from entering the wilderness again.

While patrolling the borders of the Wilderness, Luthandros gathered from those posted in Edgeville that another enemy had been trapped but later rescued by a friend. The description he had gleaned of the one who had been trapped near Edgeville matched the smiling youth who stood before him now, gesturing and talking to the red-haired pirate.

While in Edgeville, Luthandros had engaged in one of those fights which he found it so difficult to stay out of. The result had been his instant transportation to Lumbridge, and he was now returning to the Wilderness edge, via Falador in order to better avoid Leafdarking's wrath.

On the other side of the wall, in Port Sarim, Luthandros had heard voices. This was odd considering that all available forces were stationed at the borders: Al Karid, the Digsite, Varrock, the Asgarnia/Kandarin wall, the Wilderness... Port Sarim should be deserted. Yet it wasn't. A tall, dark-haired guy was talking to a red-haired pirate. By keeping perfectly still and concentrating hard, Luthandros could just pick out what the dark-haired one was saying.

He examined the docks carefully. All the big ships were gone. The only seaworthy vessel there was a small rowboat. What an honor it would be if he could actually capture these two enemies... Rorthan would reward him with well for the dark-haired adventurer, as a prisoner.

Luthandros carefully negotiated his way seawards, staying hidden on his side of the wall. He entered the water, and swam through the ruined docks towards the rowboat.

"...You know mate, I really don't understand why you care to stay here, I mean, it's just you alone and no grog. It really ain't that far to Karamja you know..."

"Arr, you wouldn't, little tacker like you. I'm retired, an' 'ere I am stayin'..."

Luthandros could here the two clearly now. Cautiously he pulled out his weapon, and stuck it into the timbers at the bottom of the boat. He twisted the point around slightly, until there was a small hole in the bottom of the boat. Any real weight in that vessel now would cause it to sink. Smiling to himself, Luthandros swam back the way he had come.

"Arr ok kid, where's ye ship gone. I'll sail it to ye island for the grog."

"Great." Kryarn's face smiled, but his eyes remained darkly annoyed at the delay. "Here it is, you take one oar and I'll row the other..."

Luthandros sprinted northwards, as his lazy personality had never permitted before. He came to the giant gates separating Asgarnia from Kandarin, and stopped the first noob mage he met.

"Hey, can you cast Bind?" He asked.

The noob mage nodded.

"Good, follow me then." Luthandros ordered, and turned back the way he came.

"But... hey! Who the hell are you? And when since did you give orders to me?" Questioned the mage indignantly.

Luthandros froze, and turned back to the mage, a look of utmost anger etched upon his tanned face.

"I am your commander you dolt, one of Leafdarking's 'friends'." He paused before the word 'friends' to emphasize what he was saying. "Now. Follow. Me." Without another word, Luthandros turned and stalked back towards Falador, with one backwards glance to ensure that the mage was following. As soon as he was sure the mage was right behind him, he broke into a run, making straight for Port Sarim.

"Arr matey! You gotcha self a leaky tub!"

The mixed feelings of anger, frustration, fear and horror threatened to boil over, to show themselves further than Kryarn's deep-emerald eyes...

The pirate had stopped rowing now, and was putting all his energy into cursing the boat, Kryarn, Port Sarim, the noobs, Kryarn, the lack off rum, Kryarn... It was a difficult task of self-control for Kryarn to refrain from slapping the pirate hard across the face. Instead, he channeled his energy into swimming back to Port Sarim. Still swearing loudly, Redbeard Frank abandoned the waterlogged vessel and followed Kryarn.

"Now... wait for it... wait for it... let them get closer... onto dry land at least... wait for it... NOW!" The noob mage released his spell of binding straight towards a startled Kryarn who was just climbing out of the water. The spell passed Luthandros, who was already sprinting towards Kryarn, and hit its target squarely. Pulling out a rope that he had stolen for such a purpose, Luthandros hastily tied up his immobile victim. Another binding spell passed him and struck the pirate. By the time the effect wore off, Kryarn was bound tightly, hand and foot.

One hard blow from the flat of his rune scimitar was normally enough to knock any victim out - but after five hits Kryarn was still very much awake, his lips drawn back in an uncharacteristic silent snarl of utter hatred. There were very few who had ever seen friendly Kryarn looking remotely this enraged before. Luthandros was taken aback. He himself had seen only a few adventurers looking this angry before, and those were the ones that were best left alone, for they wouldn't forget your face ever...

Pretending he wasn't intimidated by staring Kryarn in the eye, Luthandros did a cruelly accurate impression of Kryarn's face. Kryarn's green eyes blackened with a rage born from the combination of fear, horror, frustration and anger...

Kryarn's unblinking stare was steadily unnerving Luthandros, who averted his eyes quickly.

"Here, gimme that." Luthandros grabbed the noob mage's staff and beat Redbeard Frank around the head with it. The pirate crumpled to the ground, senseless. With some spare rope, Luthandros lashed his prisoner's hands and feet to the staff. With the mage holding one end of the staff and Luthandros the other, they journeyed in the direction of Al Kharid, their silently furious prisoner suspended upside-down between them.


	14. Even Stranger

Chapter Thirteen

Even stranger…

The sun had risen high, its light filtering down through the thousands of leaves that shadowed the forest path from Draynor village to Lumbridge. It cast small shadows on the three moving figures below the woodland canopy. Its light also illuminated a forth figure... standing off the path slightly... watching the small group make their slow way eastwards...

Sweat trickled into Luthandros's eyes, blurring his view. The stillness, it was unnatural. 'The weather, it's never this still and quiet, ever.' Thought Luthandros bitterly. 'And it chooses to be freaking humid now, when I'm lugging a frigging heavy idiot...' his thoughts trailed off. It was probably just Luthandros's pessimistic nature that made him notice the unnatural change in the weather, far earlier than anyone else did.

Behind him, he could hear the noob mage panting heavily. He readjusted the staff on his shoulders, focused on the ground ahead and continued his slow progress east.

"Hey you! Can you tell me where I am?" a commanding voice came from ahead.

Luthandros reacted like he had been shot. He knew personally the tone of voice of every noob commander... and every noob that was not a commander, they never sounded this demanding. Unceremoniously dumping one end of the staff on the ground, ignoring his prisoner's yelp of pain, he grabbed his weapon and sprinted towards the speaker. Without stopping to let her explain, ignoring her surprised protests, he swung his scimitar at her - only to have it blocked by her staff. Luthandros pulled his weapon free and was about to swing it again when his enemy yelled, "Ultimentra Enfeebiliaris!"

Luthandros fell to the ground, gasping. Strength had never been his strongest point, and now he felt sapped of what little he already had.

"Go... tell Leafdarking... run... now... go!" Luthandros gasped out to the noob mage, who promptly dropped his end of the staff and sprinted off east.

"Entangle!" Yelled the new female mage, sending a blazing white bolt of energy towards the noob mage. The noob mage dodged the missile, through luck more than anything else, allowing it to hit a tree instead.

Turning back to Luthandros, who was now trying to force his weakened muscles to allow him to stand up, the newcomer asked the obvious, "Who are you?"

Luthandros gave up trying to stand, and rested on his side. He looked up at the mage that he had attacked, and added insult to injury by noticing her fighting abilities. She was only a level 12 combat; a full 37 combat levels beneath him. She was wearing a cheap, regular dark wizard's shirt, and blue trousers that looked like the dog had been playing with them. Her shock of bright orange hair looked as if it hadn't seen a comb for weeks. Luthandros feverently hoped that the no one he knew would find out that he had been bested by such a one.

"Hey, can you talk? Or are you just a noob that mugs people for free stuff instead of begging? Go on. Talk." The orange-haired mage demanded.

"Lu... Luthandros. I'm... Luthandros. An... And... get this... fk...ing curse... off...me." Luthandros was finding it very tiring to speak properly. The mage eyed him thoughtfully.

"You know, I don't think I will lift the curse. It should wear off in a few minutes anyway." She turned away from Luthandros and walked towards Kryarn, who was now examining his bonds carefully, trying to discover how to pick the knots.

"Oh yeah, my name's Cerrin Wyver by the way. Called Cerrin." The mage called back over her shoulder towards Luthandros. He had told her his name, so it was right for her to tell him her name, even if she was leaving him gasping like a landed trout for a while.

"Hey, you want some help there?" Cerrin asked Kryarn, who was having major difficulties unpicking Luthandros's knots.

"Yeah, sure." Kryarn answered. Cerrin took Luthandros's scimitar from him (he was too weak to argue), and cut Kryarn free in seconds. Rubbing his sore wrists and ankles, Kryarn looked over to where Luthandros was lying. A touch of his normal charm began to override the silent fury that had been consuming him since Port Sarim.

"My heartiest congratulations to you mate; I hail thee as the greatest knot tier a noob has ever been." Kryarn formally mocked Luthandros, who angrily concentrated on the ground near Kryarn's feet.

"So... what's going on here? Terrova told me before I teleported that it might be a bit unfriendly, but what did you do? And back to the question I asked Luthandros here before, where the hell am I?"

"Well what's going on... I really don't know. And oh yeah - you're in Runescape, kingdom of Misthalin, about halfway between Lumbridge and Draynor Village. And these guys knocked me out and were taking me eastwards, I really don't know why... It's not like I did something to them ever, seriously. Maybe I was rude to his friend once, or maybe Kysin was rude to him once and he knows I'm Kysin's pal... I really don't know. But I gotta get to Ardougne and I gotta get there soon and fast, so yeah, good luck and I gotta go now..." Kryarn was talking more to himself than Cerrin by the end of it, where he turned and began walking back the way he had come.

'Hey... wait' Kryarn's thoughts stopped him in his tracks. 'She's what level?' He turned back in time to see Cerrin hurl a spell that was unmistakably a wind wave at a goblin. The spell knocked the goblin off it's feet, and hurled it murderously hard against a fence. Observing her combat level, 12, his analytical mind began working over the impossibilities. 'Who is she? Terrova... that's the guy who first teaches magic on Tutorial Island... Entangle... she definitely cast that at the noob mage, but that's a level 79 magic spell... how does level 12 combat go with 79 magic? And what the hell is Ultimentra Enfeebilia?' Questions circling around his head, Kryarn asked them of the strange red-haired mage.

"Where are you from? And how do you know how to cast Entangle?" Kryarn asked.

"I'm from Padua, the island of Caenor. I just graduated from Caenor's school of Witchcraft and Witchery, and one of the magic instructors, Terrova said that he could teleport me here. He said it would be strange and a little harsh compared to Padua... And any graduate in defensive arts can cast Entangle. It's a difficult charm, I've only practiced it a few times, but they all worked. What?" She asked. Kryarn was staring at her with a blank look of incredulity on his face.

"Ok, nothing, it's just that... level 12 combat never casts entangle... at least, I've never seen them do so before... and there's no school for magic; mages learn new spells by practicing the old ones. You can't just... just read a book and suddenly have level 99 magic."

"I don't have level 99 magic, only 29. But that's only cause I haven't practiced much here. I learnt it all at school." She answered. "I've been testing the spells out here, cause there's so many legal restrictions back home. Hey, I haven't tried the new teleother spells yet, I mean, I tried it on some rats at school and I never saw them again; probably cause they ended up here, but can I test it on you?"

"No!" Kryarn answered quickly. "I really gotta meet my friends; they're in Ardougne now, or somewhere near there so... see ya."

"It would be so much faster if you'd just let me teleother you." Cerrin persisted.

"NO!" Kryarn yelled, surprised at his own infuriated response. He turned his back on Cerrin and ran west. The witch took her runes and her staff, and whispered a few well-memorized words. A vague beam of purple-colored light shot towards Kryarn's retreating figure. It hit him squarely on the back, shrinking him instantly.

Cerrin smiled to herself, for the teleother to Camelot spell had worked.

Kryarn knew exactly what had happened before he had left Misthalin. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to shut out the reality that he was passing through. Unbidden, his memory replayed the scene just the same. The towering, mechanical heads, the small, jet black eyes, the red...

And his feet hit hard, firm stone. He peeled one eye open a fraction, and breathed a deep sigh of relief when he saw the imposing structure of Camelot castle towering above him. He turned at a steady walk south, which quickly broke into a fast-paced lope. The lope became a sprint as he passed Thormac's tower, and the black sentinels perched outside.

He didn't stop running until he was within the city of East Ardougne.


	15. And So It Begins

Chapter Fourteen

And so it begins

"So you're sure it was an elvish spell."

"I am sure. The spell was a powerful one, invoked by a powerful elf, and the elves do not lightly share their secrets with mortals..."

We were seated in the Flying horse inn, in Ardougne. Myself, Hawkfeather, Parrea, Adrilor and Kryarn. We were still waiting for Kysin and DarknessDie to arrive. Only half-listening to Hawkfeather and Adrilor's conversation, I let my eyes wander around the small pub. There was a hunched over short man, though not short enough for a dwarf, sitting at the bar. He'd been there since we'd arrived. And then there was the group of council workers in the corner over there. They'd come in soon after we had, and they were getting louder and louder as the beer ran down their throats. There was the tall, dark figure, wearing the darkest grey armor I'd ever seen, who walked with a slight limp. He wasn't drinking, or eating, or there with friends or anything... Maybe he was waiting, like us, for someone to arrive...

"Kysin says he's here." Kryarn's lightly slurred voice snapped me back to the conversation. He had been drinking beer since we had gotten here, though very slowly and had only gotten through a few glasses. Even this small amount was beginning to show some side effects.

I remembered my first conversation with Kysin, it seemed like an age ago though was only a matter of days. From that conversation I had easily come to the conclusion that Kysin spent a lot of time in pubs, likely more than was good for anyone. Totally aside from that, I was beginning to mistrust the dark stranger more and more, even though I had only been watching him for a short while.

"Maybe we better wait outside for them." I said. Hawkfeather nodded. Kryarn shrugged, drained the last of his beer and walked outside. We all followed him.

"There he is." Adrilor's simple statement turned our attention to the west. There was Kysin, the small black figure. He was closely followed by an unmistakable Zamorak mage. The mage had the cape and staff of Zamorak, as well as full mystic robes that were red and black in color. As he got closer, I could see his eyes, his face. The eyes were a strange shade of red and black, matching his robes. I heard Kryarn stifle a whimper beside me; when I turned to look at him he looked back as if nothing had happened. I shrugged it off as another of Kryarn's many impractical oddities. The mage's eyes shone like dying coals from a marble-white face, slightly tanned from the shadow cast by the mystical helm.

"Hello again Kysin." Hawkfeather addressed the shadow. "You're DarknessDie?" He said to the mage, who ignored the proffered hand and instead inclined his head slightly.

The conversation may have gone on in more serious and formal terms, or not gone on at all, if Kryarn hadn't interrupted.

"Hey, why don't we all go inside, get ourselves a drink. Guthix knows how much rest anyone's gotten in the last week. It's all on me." Kryarn's voice was lighter and more slurred than usual; I feared that the few beers he had drunk already was leaving him more over-confident than usual. My small fears were overcome by a sight that I had thought I would never, ever see. Kysin's dark face broke into a grin.

"The Flying horse isn't near as good as the Dragon in Yanille, but hell let's go!" He said, and walked into the inn followed closely by Kryarn and Adrilor.

At the doorway Kryarn turned. "Hey, come on guys! It's been a long week and nothing's gonna hurt us here, with all the heroes and paladins and the rest of Lathas's troupe."

"But I don't want anyone to get hangover... we gotta move on... Oh what the heck, alright. Coming you three?" Said Hawkfeather.

"No, I don't drink, haven't ever." I said. It was true. I hadn't even completed the famous Alfred Grimhand Barcrawl yet. I had never drunk more than one glass of anything at a time, and I didn't intend to start now. Beside me, Parrea shook her head, declining the offer.

"Ok, well, just take it easy you two. We're not going anywhere until at least tomorrow, so just relax until then, and meet us back at this place at about dawn." With that last message, Hawkfeather walked into the _Flying horse, _followed closely by DarknessDie. From inside the pub, I could hear Kryarn's cheery voice.

"So Darkie mate, what would ya like? They normally serve good, classic beer, or if you want I can get you something stronger..."

"I know it's a classic, talking about the weather and all, but is really still and quiet today? More than normal?" Parrea asked. Well, now that she mentioned it... It was still and quiet. I had been in East Ardougne countless times before, and there was always noise... the constant battle between thieves, guards and shopkeepers in the square, the river flowing through the city, the weighted footsteps of the Ardougne militia, the loud voices that always issued from the inn... They were always there... But Parrea was right. Somehow, everything seemed more still than usual. If I listened, I could catch the yells and general noise from the marketplace, at the other side of the town. Despite the bright sunlight and myself, I shivered.

"You're right... something's different, but it doesn't seem different... you know what I mean... um, dunno how to put it better..." I tried to explain that it wasn't just her, that there was definitely something different about the air.

She nodded, and grabbed a random person walking along the road. "Hey, is the weather really still and quiet, or do I need to see the doctor?" She asked the stranger.

The stranger nodded. "Aye. It's been like this for a few days gone now. But out east further, it's not this still and quiet. Some sorts of the plagues a-coming over from west, if you ask me."

"Ok, thankyou very much." Parrea said. The stranger nodded and continued on his way. "Well, I know for a fact that there's no plague, that it's just a hoax by King Lathas to keep the world out of his backyard..."

I interrupted her there. I, too knew that the plague was a fake, a plan to keep the world out of West Ardougne so King Lathas would be free to go about his evil business unhindered. But I had been under the impression that such knowledge wasn't very widely known, at all.

"Where did... no, how did you know that?" I asked her.

"Oh there's this girl Elena who lives here, nice person, she's really concerned about the poor plague-ridden people in West Ardougne. She gave me some plague sample and a few other chemicals to give to a friend in Varrock... way over the other side of the country, and it all shatters during teleportation... anyway, this friend did some tests and discovered that the plague didn't exist. At all. So I went and told the king and he told me a lot. Not much about his plans, but at least he admitted to the plague being in his imagination." I couldn't believe it. Parrea's story was exactly the same as mine!

"Heh, maybe Elena got too impatient with waiting for you, so she sent me as well." Parrea suggested, after I had told her my story. We had walked a fair way now, north. We turned east, passing the Ardougne training grounds. To our south, were the thick walls of West Ardougne... and...Hey...

"Hey, Parrea look!" She looked in the direction of my pointing arm, not at the walls, but over them...

There were lights and a cloud. Dimmed in the sun's bright glare, but unmistakable just the same. Covering the entire town, at the same level of the highest point on the walls, was a black cloud. A thick, black felt blanket that was hovering above the entire city. Within this cloud, I could see flickers of light... red light, strewn throughout the cloud, and occasionally rising above it for a second. Threads of black light, if light can be black, was rising above this cloud as well as the red.

I didn't understand it, and from the look on her face, neither did Parrea. And then... and then... it was gone. Just like that. It was all there, the lights, the cloud... everything, then I blinked and it was gone. Uncertain, I looked at Parrea.

"Where'd it all go?" She asked. I had no idea.

Beneath my feet, I felt the ground shake; reminding me horribly of the first time I had been aware that something was wrong in Runescape. I looked down; pebbles were dancing on its surface. Parrea clutched at my arm, a note of hysteria appearing in her voice.

"Zanathir look! The city the lights! Look!"

I was looking. Behind the city walls, the cloud that was there seconds ago had now come together in one huge pillar... that rose... that was stretching skywards... it's inky darkness looking to pierce a hole through the azure sky... sunlight couldn't just make it go away at all...

As I was staring at the awesome sight, of the pillar, I became aware of a voice... a strange, grating, throaty sound that seemed to come from all places and everywhere at once...

And then the pillar fell. It exploded back into a cloud... a thinner, more wispy cloud than the one that had recently hung over the city... but this new cloud didn't stay within the city walls... it spread outwards... it was coming... I felt paralyzed, helpless, just watching it approach...

It engulfed us. Or more accurately, it engulfed Parrea. Through the cloud I felt her grasp tighten, I heard her scream. Then her hand loosened... and fell away... all this time I was experiencing nothing. There was light in front of my face, and all around me... but the light was green, bright emerald... The light, it was coming from my amulet, the pendant of the elf Lord Iowerth. The light was holding back the cloud; forcing it away and around my body... it wasn't touching me...

And then it was over. As suddenly as the cloud had disappeared in the first place, it did so again now. My shining amulet faded into its typical green color again. Beside me, lying still and unmoving on the ground, was Parrea. She wasn't dead. Injured perhaps, but were she dead her bones would be all that remained...

"Parrea?" I asked cautiously. She didn't look injured, but she wasn't reacting to her name, nor did she move when I shook her. For all of twenty minutes, she just lay there, still and unmoving. And then she moved. Her eyes flashed open.

"Parrea?" I said. Her eyes focused on me, and with no apparent difficulty she sat up. "Parrea are you ok? What happened?" I asked. She merely shook her head.

"I don't know." She said wearily. "I feel ok... sort of... but... not ok... it's like the weather was; it seemed alright but you knew it wasn't somehow... Are you ok?" She looked at me.

"Yeah, I feel fine. I'm seriously beginning to think that this pendant is blessed or something... it like glowed bright green light, and the light kept the shadow away from me. I'm fine." I said. On an afterthought I added, "Do you have any idea at all what happened?"

She shrugged. "Something big, that's for sure. But what... your guess is good like mine is. We should go back to the others."

I saw the sense in that, even though I had no wish to join a drinking party. But then, if something like this had happened to them, there probably wasn't a drinking party no more. Without any difficulty she got up, and began walking to Ardougne. There wasn't anything wrong with her. I could see that... but it was so like the weather... there was something wrong, something changed and it wasn't good... just I couldn't see it exactly...

Kryarn and Adrilor were waiting outside the _Flying Horse Inn _when we arrived. Adrilor was first to see us, and he approached at a fast run.

"My friends! Are you injured?" He asked as he got nearer. "Oh..." his face cracked into a grin. He was staring at my chest, at the innocent looking emerald pendant hanging there. "My friend Zanathir... that is the pendant of Lord Iowerth himself! So it is true, that you were not affected by the evil, as were all other mortals?"

"Yes, it's true." I assured him. My next few words came out in a rush, "How? Did Lord Iowerth do this? What'd he do exactly? Why doesn't it affect you? Or does it?"

"Ah my friend, would that I could answer all those questions. But to some, I can provide answers enough to satisfy the need. I was not affected simply because I too am favored by the Lord Iowerth, and possess the gemstone as proof. I do not believe that Lord Iowerth did this deed, for its effect far outweighs his abilities. He is a soldier, a general, not a wizard. I no not who did it for sure; nor how they did it, nor what they actually did. But although I would see it otherwise, my heart tells me that something of great evil has befallen us this day."

"Dude, are you guys alright?" Kryarn looked concerned and scared, but otherwise unharmed.

"Yeah, we're fine. What about everyone else... Hawkfeather, DarknessDie and Kysin?" Parrea answered with a question of her own.

"Well... DarknessDie is still out of it, Hawkfeather's alright, he's in there now waiting for Darkie, in case he needs something... I dunno. And Kysin's gone. He's just evaporated. Like he was there with the rest of us when the cloud came, and then he disappeared and I haven't seen him since." He answered. Glancing over at the house to the east then back at Parrea he asked, "Parrea? What... hello? Dude you're scaring me... hey girl, are you ok...?"

Parrea was staring at the house across the river; Jericho's house, and the pigeon cages outside it. Like everything else living, the pigeons were on their backs, out cold.

"...Parrea?" I questioned of her. Her face had gone white, not that it wasn't white already but it was now much paler than normal.

"Parrea!" I asked again. By now the three of us were staring at her. She looked like she was experiencing a powerful stun spell or something. But it didn't last...

After about a minute of standing there with her mouth open and her skin whitening, Parrea came to action and sprinted off towards the docks. We followed. I still had no idea what she was on about.

She didn't answer any of our questions. She just crossed out of Ardougne, and slew a chicken there with her blood-red dagger.

And then I understood. Frozen with shock, I stood there and stared, much as Parrea had done less than a minute earlier.

The weather, the strange sounds, the lights...

It all made sense now.

I was staring at the dead chicken, we all were.

The dead chicken's corpse.

Not just it's bones.

The corpse was still there.

_The chicken hadn't respawned._


	16. The Black Guard

Chapter Fifteen

The Black Guard

"WHAT?"

The noob mage cowered beneath Leafdarking's anger. "Yes that's what happened. A messy level 12 mage got Luthandros and rescued the prisoner."

Leafdarking messaged someone, burning with quiet anger at what a prize Luthandros had lost. If he had successfully delivered his prisoner... he was under her command... what a reward it would've been for one of her men to bring in a prisoner like that.

Freak was another member of the noob's army, one of Leafdarking's top leaders. His full name was Freakoldman, but that was too... unlike a name for most noobs, so to everyone he had been shortened to Freak. Freak by name, and in Leafdarking's opinion, by nature as well. But to many of his fellow soldiers, Freak wasn't freakish at all, so he was often simply called Jhonny.

Since they had raided the major towns of Asgarnia and Misthalin, Freak had taken black armor to wear. His weapon also was black; a mace. It wasn't as if he couldn't wear anything better, he actually cared about what it looked like. What noob ever cared about how they looked? He actually scared Leafdarking, in a way... he always followed orders as good as anyone, often better, but he was obviously cleverer than most noobs... and a good deal nicer, too. What he wore, how he behaved... 'Yep, he's definitely a black sheep, but still a sheep all the same.' Leafdarking thought, as she forced the disturbing thoughts to the back of her head.

"Yes?" Leafdarking flinched slightly at the leveled voice coming from directly behind her. She turned, and looked straight at the tanned golden face of Freak.

"Freak, there's an enemy lost in the woods east of Lumbridge; you are to take a few men, and recapture him." She ordered. Freak inclined his head.

"I'll catch him, if he's in the vicinity. But he could've teleported, or ran easily." He replied.

"If he ran, then find him. And don't come back here until you do." She said, and turned her back on him, signifying that the interview was closed.

Freak walked back outside, and then jogged towards the main noob headquarters, the old underground H.A.M. encampment. He had known about the noob's movement for years... he had known ever since the mysterious old man tried to cast the spell over him.

Whether the old man's spell had worked or not, he didn't know. But he did know that the army he was in was wrong, destroying Runescape as it was. He knew that he was unquestionably part of the army, so was in the perfect position of a spy. Problem was, no high levels had ever believed him, so he had no one to spy for.

But there had been a few who had believed him... a few like himself, who had been chosen for the noobs army. Like him, they believed that the army was wrong, but was way to powerful for them to do anything about it. Together, these adventurers had formed the Black Guard, a clan built to destroy the noobs army... from the inside.

So far, there were only three members of the black guard. All others in the army were well and truly noobs, who wanted nothing more than wealth, and revenge on those who had dubbed them noobs...

Freak reached the headquarters, and entered. The noobs guarding the place waved cheerfully at him as he approached. Freak couldn't help feeling a pang of sympathy for them... They were reduced to mindless members of the crowd, under a magical spell, fighting because others had taunted them to the point of great anger.

"Hey guys." Freak said as he approached the two sitting around a fire in the corner. One of them, clad in similar black armor as Freak, was just staring into the flames, and another was heating a bar of steel in the fire. A hammer and a bar of adamant that would serve as an anvil lay nearby.

"Hey Freak" Said the smith, without looking up from his work.

"What'd Leaf want?" Asked the black-armored warrior.

"Apparently Luthandros lost a prisoner in the woods; she wants us to get him." Said Freak, seating himself at the fire.

The warrior laughed. "Luthandros is the biggest idiot, I swear. Still, I kinda feel sorry for the guy... when Leafdarking gets to him."

"Luthandros shouldn't even have tried." Replied the smith, turning the steel bar over with her hammer to see if it was hot enough yet.

"Luthandros doesn't have enough brains to know not to try. He gets himself into so many hopeless fights... I reckon it's not a day for him if he isn't killed at least once." Said the warrior.

"He's a good fighter though, Calladus. He could own you anywhere on a fair fight." Said the smith. "And it's actually pretty brave, when you think of it, entering a fight that you know you can't win and trying your best anyways." He added on an afterthought.

"Ha! Luthandros is pure noob. He doesn't know what 'fair' is. And he's not smart enough to recognize a hopeless situation neither. And he couldn't really own me - he could win, but not easily." replied the warrior, Calladus.

"Win is enough for him. To a noob, win and own are exactly the same thing. He may have won by a little bit, but in the story told 'round the campfire that night, you would've been owned by Luthandros with both hands tied behind his back." Said the smith, carefully.

"Shut up Blaze." Replied Calladus, slightly annoyed at the smith's truthful words.

"My name is Blazingwarri, not just Blaze." Said the smith, equally annoyed.

"Hey, guys, we should go now, and see about that high level." Freak cut across their bantering.

"Ok... another minute while I bang this up..." Blazingwarri said, as he took the dull red steel ingot out of the fire and hammered it into a scimitar on the green adamant bar.

"Are you taking your plate?" Asked Calladus.

"Of course I am. I'd never see it again if I left it here." Replied Blazingwarri, pulling on his mithril plate as he spoke.

Ten minutes later, they were outside the headquarters striding off in the direction of Draynor village. Their plan was simple: find the high level, and make him aware of their helpful presence. Then offer him teleportation runes for his escape, or an invitation to join their clan.

Half an hour after that, the trio was on the track from Draynor village to Lumbridge. Freak and Calladus had been sitting beneath the trees, resting and watching Blazingwarri's attempts to locate tracks or signs or... something that might've been left by a high level adventurer.

Blazingwarri was an explorer, a miner and a smith. From when he had first arrived in Runescape, he had left the castle of Lumbridge to explore the world. His explorations had uncovered many rich sources of silver, gold, coal and mithril. He discovered quickly that he didn't have anywhere near the right skills for mining these minerals, so had taken his pickaxe and mined the lesser metals of tin, copper and iron.

To make some cash on the side he had smithed these metals into bars and from bars into weapons and armor. Now, he was a respectable miner and smith; but his hobby lay in exploration. His knowledge of the land around the kingdoms of Asgarnia and Misthalin was awesome. He knew every pebble, tree, house, inside of buildings, above ground and below. The earth was his living... it gave him all he needed to survive, and he knew to read it's language better than most.

So far, his searches had uncovered the tracks of two travelers apparently moving in single file. Their tracks were deep, indicating a heavy person, and they were walking irregularly like they were exhausted or carrying something really heavy and unstable or something. The tracks were also an even distance apart, and there were strange depressions in the ground that Blazingwarri couldn't identify.

He had tracked these heavy footsteps to Port Sarim. Where the unconscious pirate and shape of the ground told him that there had been three people here besides Redbeard, and they had been fighting. Only two had walked away from the seaport, two tracks heavily laden...

And then nearer to the headquarters, there had been a large dent in the earth, and two considerably lightened sets of footsteps running in different directions. In the path of one set of footprints, there was a dent in the ground similar to the first.

After half an hour of studying marks in the ground, Blazingwarri had deducted that the pirate and another human had been attacked by two people at Port Sarim. The attackers had won, knocked out the pirate and tied Redbeard's friend to a pole of sorts. Calladus had affirmed later that the pole was probably a mage's staff.

The staff and its prisoner had been carried by both attackers, east. They had been waylaid by a single attacker a short distance outside of H.A.M. headquarters. The ground told him that the new attacker had probably won, and teleported the pirate's friend away. Or the friend teleported himself away.

Now, they were following tracks deeper into the forest, south. Following the tracks of whoever had attacked Luthandros, his friend and their prisoner.

"Hey, who's that?" Calladus tapped Freak on the shoulder, his question making both his companions look in the direction of his pointing finger. He was pointing at a scruffy-looking female mage. From the looks of her, she could've been a noob... but... what noob was ever able to drown a goblin in a magic spell?

"It's her tracks." Blazingwarri whispered.

Freak nodded. He was a friendly person by nature, always looked for the best in anyone. He had rarely felt anger, definitely not the enraged lust for revenge that had possessed most low leveled adventurers, that had made them such easy targets for the army. He was a fairly good warrior, but he excelled as a leader, of sorts.

Problem was, he didn't want to be a leader. His endearing personality made him a good friend of anyone... he had many noobs that would follow him to anything if he commanded them. But he didn't want to command without orders, for the reason that the noob leaders may discover where his loyalties lied... And he also doubted his intelligence to handle big decisions.

Looking at the red-haired mage now... she was only level 12, despite the fact that she had just cast a powerful water attack spell. Freak knew that she wasn't a noob, for no noob in the army was that advanced in magic, except perhaps the ultimate mage Skraine. To Freak, anyone who wasn't on the noob army was a friend, an ally... and anyone who was on the army was a friend of his anyway.

He rose and left the shadow of the bush the trio had been hiding behind, and walked towards the mage, ignoring Calladus's urgent-sounding whisper,

"Freak..."

"Hey there!" Freak called out as he neared the mage. The mage's reaction was much like Luthandros's reaction to a similar greeting hours earlier. She spun around, yelling "Liquidatus minor!"

'Liquidatus minor...?' thought Freak... for a split second before a sheet of sparkling water smothered him. It drained off him quickly, leaving him totally drenched and coughing water out of his lungs.

"Who are you?" The strange mage demanded.

"F...freak..." Freakoldman gasped out through the water that was still inside him.

"Entangle!" She yelled, summoning a bolt of pure lightning out of the air. She threw it, not at waterlogged Freak, but at Blazingwarri and Calladus behind him. Both of them yelled as they dived for cover.

"What'd we ever do to you?" Called Calladus indignantly, from the relative safety of an oak tree.

"You're noobs!" Cerrin yelled back, throwing a heated fire spell in the general direction of the oak tree. The tree burst into flames, forcing a painfully scalded Callauds to evacuate.

"We're not noobs!" The warrior basically screamed. "We're members of a highly significant organization created and designed to infiltrate adversary's technical systems and disrupt as many procedures there as is humanely possible!"

"...huh...?" A confused Cerrin said quietly.

"We're not noobs!" Said Freak, echoing Calladus's first statement.

Cerrin was staring at Calladus with a strange expression on her face.

"Ohhkaayy... noobs never spoke like that before." she said. "Even normal people don't talk like that. But there was this one guy at school, he taught history and used so many big words you needed a dictionary for every sentence he said."

"Ok... just... please understand that we're friends." Said Blazingwarri, emerging from beneath a bush.

The red-haired mage grinned. "Sorry 'bout that. I just thought you were noobs... the other guy there, Luthandros, said that noobs were the only things in these woods 'cept me and the black haired guy."

"Yeah Luthandros's an idiot noob... every sense of the word." Said Calladus, lapsing back into normal speech. "I'm Calladus by the way, and this is Freak... Blazingwarri." He said, gesturing towards his companions as he introduced them.

"Hey, I'm Cerrin. I'm kinda new here, so I didn't know much..." said the mage, Cerrin.

"Hey, how were you casting entangle? And how does level 12 combat go with 79 mage..." asked Blazingwarri, curiosity prominent in every word. Cerrin sighed. She had already explained to Kryarn... now these people too? Resigning herself to the fact that people in Runescape weren't as smart as the people back home... but then, that warrior Calladus sounded clever enough... she explained who she was and where she'd learnt everything.

"Well... he's gone but you're welcome to join us if you want." Cerrin Wyver had explained her history to the Black Guard, and they had told her about their work against the noobs. At this proposal to join their clan, she shuddered.

"I hate noobs, any kind. We got noobs back home, they're everywhere... I'm not joining noobs, never." She said.

"Ok, well... it's getting kinda late, and we've gotta get back to camp soon... Leafdarking's gonna kill me if I'm late, literally." Said Freak.

"Ok, see yas later. Lemme know if the noobs give you more trouble." Replied Cerrin.

The trio turned and began walking back towards headquarters. Blazingwarri felt the side of his head cool... it was hot... hot and sultry the weather... hot enough for sweat to be running down the side of his face. And now it was cooling... Sweat only cools from wind, a breeze regardless how faint... Blazingwarri turned his face into the slight breeze, the breeze from the west...

"What the hell is that?" Calladus, Freak and Cerrin all turned around to stare first at Blazingwarri ... then to where Blazingwarri was looking, to the west... at the darkness that rolled towards them... darkness carried on a breeze that was quickly picking up into a wind... On the wind, preceding the darkness... was a voice... a strange, throaty, tone with murderous evil prominent in every detectable syllable... They blocked their ears, trying the shut the sound out... but it couldn't be done... it was everywhere...

"Run... hide..." said Calladus, sounding pitifully feeble beside the sound of raw evil emanating from the wind. But none of them moved. Simple, primeval curiosity had rooted them to the spot.

And the cloud was upon them. The voice... it was everywhere... couldn't be shut out... the cloud was worse... The cloud was everywhere... in their face, nose, eyes, ears, mouth... in their veins, in their minds... The cloud carried the voice with it... Trapped inside their minds, the voice was amplified one hundredfold... Yelling from the torturous pain... they blacked out...


	17. The Council of Rorthan

Chapter Sixteen

The Council of Rorthan

The lurid pink of the HAM hood blew itself against her cheek, in the weather that hadn't felt a breeze for many days. Turning her face towards the breeze, Leafdarking stared helplessly at the approaching darkness... She was powerless against its overwhelming strength... Like so many others in Runescape that day...

Deep in one of his wilderness hideouts, Bio saw the black cloud coming... assuming it was one of the many small winds that kicked up the feathery light black ash that made up most of the wilderness ground, he dived for cover... A hollow tree wasn't good enough to keep the cloud out though... As it hit him, he heard the voice - and understood it.

In a terrible, powerful, grating lisp it spoke "Thou isss ignoransssse... Join usss... Come... and thou ssshalth... win... whhith usss..." Nothing but pure excitement and anticipation coursed through Biohazardluver's mind. Without thinking it through, he yelled out into the oppressive darkness... "I join!" He felt the darkness enter him... he felt himself grow thinner, and transparent... and with a last gust of wind, he apparated from that place altogether.

The sun was shining, a golden ball hanging overhead in the western sky. Leafdarking picked herself up off the ground. She thought as to how she got there... and remembered. But like the others, like Parrea... she had no idea what had befallen her, and apparently her troops as well. Pulling out her message list, she discovered that Rorthan, the grand leader of the army himself had summoned her to a meeting. That evening, in the Burthorpe castle. She looked at the sun. That evening... wasn't a long time away...

Stretching her arms out, she shrunk and teleported.

Leafdarking arrived at the Burthorpe castle, discovering that it wasn't just her that had been summoned. In the castle courtyard, she recognized other leaders and great fighters in the noobs army. There was Skraine, Rorthan's legendary right hand man... and... She sent a look of pure disdain at Luthandros in the corner. Why had Rorthan summoned him? She asked herself. There was Freakoldman... and his usual guard of two... and an odd assortment of other fighters and captains in the noob's army.

She was in a discussion with Freak about the fate of the high leveled enemy she'd sent him after, when a contained cloud of mist erupted in front of them. When the misty cloud disappeared, the fabled Mysterious Old Man was there. His arrival had caught the attention of most the noobs present that evening. In a loud voice that belied his fragile appearance, he announced, "Move inside and be seated, for Rorthan comes soon to us."

Leafdarking followed the rest of the crowd inside the castle, and, seeing no chairs anywhere, sat on the floor that had been covered with the remains of the tents belonging to the Imperial Black Army of Burthorpe. Once they were all inside, and seated on the floor, Rorthan walked energetically down the stairs and approached the large table to the side of the room. Banging his fists on the table, he called for silence.

No matter how powerful, Rorthan was, is and probably always will be a noob. Being such, he wasn't given to eloquent introductions. His commands and presentations were quick, sharp and to the point.

"You're all here... no one missing... good." The noob leader said. "Ok, everyone here should've noticed the cloud, and felt its effects. Before that subject though, a few reports from our borders... Killerbum!"He called. A noob commander in the crowd stood up, likely Killerbum."Killerbumhow's the war with Morytania, do we need more troops in that area, are we safe from them?" Rorthan asked.

"We haven't moved into Morytania yet, though we are making use of the powers of Saradomin to keep the evil that lives in that land away from us. I've got about sixty bored troops stationed there; all we need is the holy water, and about five to make the Saradominist priest bless the water." Reported Killerbum.

"Ok, Killerbum, leave fifteen there and call the rest to Camelot after this meeting. Leafdarking!" Called Rorthan. Leafdarking stood up. "How goes your border post?" He asked.

Leafdarking had been prepared for this. "I've got exactly fifty-four troops, fifty-five if you include myself. There isn't any need for anyone to be posted in Al Kharid, because the only threat is far across a huge desert to the south, the desert that poses a threat to anybody. The people who live south of that desert are in the middle of civil war, and thieves basically rule their lands. I don't think that they will attempt an attack on us.

If you think that some troops must stay in Al Kharid, I can choose twenty from my command. But in the past few days some of us have seen powerful enemies in Al Kharid, Misthalin and Asgarnia. I'm pretty sure that these enemies are the same two. I sent some of my most selected troops after them, but the cloud let the enemy escape."

Rorthan nodded at her report. "The fact that you know your troops that well is good..." The leader called upon another noob leader, and another, to make their reports. All of them said that they had troops that were lounging around doing nothing, except the one that was trying to clear the dwarves out of their mine, and the one trying to eliminate the trolls. The commander fighting the dwarves had about forty troops, and assured Rorthan that the mine would be empty in a few days. He also had brought an awesome trophy of enough parts to assemble five multi-cannons.

The commander fighting the trolls asked for a lot more mages, few rangers and absolutely no warriors. Rorthan listened to his request impassively.

"Radune!" Rorthan called up yet another noob leader. "The attack on Camelot, how goes it?"

The attack on Camelot... Leafdarking hadn't been aware that Camelot was under attack.

A heavily armored warrior stood up on the other side of the room.

"We have destroyed Camelot, and killed all who resisted, except one skilled young knight, who we captured instead. I have about four hundred troops stationed there, now. There is attacks coming from the barbarians in the north, but they're not hard to take care of. No one's tried to attack us from the south yet. But from the west, earlier this day before the cloud, we were attacked by a flock of black crows. Small birds, and my troops managed to kill them, but it's fairly unusual for crows to attack one target in such numbers, and we did nothing to them."

From where she was sitting, Leafdarking wasn't able to read the expression on Rorthan's face, but she found it eerie that crows would attack... perhaps there was more to Runescape than a rabble of selfish adventurers...

"So... now we have heard all the reports from our borders, all seems to be going well... but we move too slow. Our enemy has struck us with his most powerful weapon, and we are pitifully far away from ending him." Said Rorthan. "What I am going to tell you tonight, I've only told to my closest advisers and friends. But now the empty lord has struck... we must all know him, know what we fight."

Leafdarking was confused. When the mysterious old man had offered her a place in the noob army, he had told her that the army's purpose was to cleanse Runescape of all life. Except that life that wasn't a member of the army. All life included the bear that had once killed her... the high levels that had taunted her... called her a noob... Joining this army... she saw the bears dying... those high levels at her mercy... Revenge would be sweet...

Yet the old man hadn't mentioned anything about dark clouds, almost god-like powers, flocks of crows united... just a divided rabble of selfish adventurers.

But Rorthan was continuing. "Many thousands of years ago, Guthix created Runescape, and he named the land Gielinor. He populated the land with living creatures, from trees to people. Then he breathed his greatest gift on the people: the gift of eternal life. Tired from his efforts at creating the land, he slept. During his sleep, new god-like powers arose on Guthix's land Gielinor. There were many that arose, but the two main ones were called Armadyl and Zaros.

Armadyl was a peaceful deity, who tried his hardest to further beautify the land that Guthix called Gielinor and that the humans had dubbed Runescape. Armadyl promoted peace, harmony, and all-round goodness. To most people, this was appealing and Armadyl obtained many followers. It wasn't long before Runescape was divided into three parts: the people who worshipped Armadyl, the people who worshipped Guthix, and the people who worshipped other gods.

History doesn't really say how he began, or when, or if he was even a he. But records show that somewhere around this time of Armadyl and Guthix worshipers, another god came. The nicest true thing that could be said about this god was that he was pure. Pure darkness, pure evil, pure destruction. He began a great war against all the peoples of Runescape, the people divided as they were into three parts.

His army was of vampires, and ghasts, and the undead, giant insects and thousands of weak goblins. They were led by tall, deadly pale-skinned, long haired human-like creatures. These creatures over time became the elves that live in the east. Among this god's captains were the demon Azzandra, the vampire lord Drakan and the skilled diplomat Charos. His name was spoken fearfully, until it almost disappeared altogether, until he was known as The Empty Lord.

The main force who resisted this god's army belonged to a mortal general called Zamorak. There is a complicated story, held only by a handful of far-flung ghosts, of how the Staff of Armadyl found it's way into Zamorak's hands. The Staff of Armadyl was a treasured relic of the good god. In a last great battle against the hordes of evil, Zamorak killed the Empty Lord with the staff. The staff of goodness killed the Empty Lord, if he can be at all killed.

But we know that when he died, all mortals who were associated in any way with the staff became ghosts for the rest of eternity; an example of the Empty Lord's punishment. All the pure evil that resided within him fled... most of it into Zamorak's own form. Now, Zamorak is the image of the Empty Lord; immortal... he is a god... a god, but he was born mortal... and will never be the same as the Empty Lord was. Most of the Empty Lord's forces fled, the elves into the east, the vampires to the west, the goblins, underground and the insects to the south.

But he has not gone. He is forever, a god. Far more immortal than the rest of us. All these thousands of years he has rested... and waited... and now he is banding again... From the one who most of you know as the Mysterious Old Man, I learnt that the Empty Lord's spirit has lived within one mortal creature... somewhere...

And that mortal creature is who we are trying to find. We do not have a war with Runescape, only against the evil that rises in one living form... somewhere within the land of Runescape. All those who were found to not harbor the spirit of the Empty Lord, the Mysterious Old Man has put into a deep sleep, so to try and make them immune to the terrible weapon that the Empty Lord released upon us this day.

So now you see... the Empty Lord is rising... somewhere. He will call to him his old followers... from the east, west, south... everywhere. But he lives in one mortal form. One person, or dragon, or mosquito, or bear, unicorn, undead... all we must do is find this one, and kill them. We kill them, and the power of the Empty Lord will flee again, and stay away for another few thousand years.

And as to the weapon that he released? It was a counter-curse... it has taken from us all, the power of eternal survival. When killed, we will die. Forever. And never, ever reappear, never to live again. That is what the cloud did to us. That is what we fight. We fight for the greater good of Runescape, in the memory of the greatest general of all who destroyed the Empty Lord so many years ago. For mortal Zamorak as he once was. Not as the paled image of the Empty Lord that he is now."

Rorthan stopped and looked around the room at his followers. Leafdarking was stunned. She had thought that this would be another exciting adventure... sure, she might die... but she would... had always respawned again in Lumbridge...

Freak, Calladus and Blazingwarri were equally stunned. This changed a lot... They had always been for Saradomin... but in the light of this new enemy, the Empty Lord, maybe it was time for them to put aside their differences with Zamorak... Maybe disrupting the army wasn't for the greater good.

"So you all know exactly what we're up against." Rorthan had begun speaking again. "Our battle plans must then be adjusted accordingly. Out of the east will come hordes of vampires... the goodness of one river and the strength of a priest. It is doubtful that these combined will be enough to stay the enemy. From the south will come insects... far bigger and more powerful than the largest dragons. From the west comes the little armies of Ardougne, combined with the false alliance of the elves. We have hundreds of troops, superior numbers... now all we need is strategy."

Late into that night, Rorthan made a detailed explanation of what exactly the new strategies were. Before, it had just been to release the masses on the enemy and kill. But now, lives were far more expensive...

It was very late that night when the meeting ended. When the strategies were finally over, everyone rose to leave the castle. The general chatter paused for a moment as Radune's voice rang through the crowd, voicing the question that they had all thought of, but no one had dared ask.

"What's the Empty Lord's real name?" He called out.

Rorthan looked in his direction, but it was the mysterious old man who answered.

"Thou hast not guessed? His name, it was Zaros."

"Guys, Rorthan is lying just to get rebels like us to fight better for him! We are for Saradomin, and he's for Zamorak, he admitted it - you heard him!" Freak yelled exasperatedly. Calladus had seriously been considering really joining forces with the noobs, and Blazingwarri had been staying out of the argument.

"Freak didn't you see that cloud? That was power, and bad power! Forget Saradomin and Zamorak, both of you. Now it's simply Zaros versus the rest of us." Calladus retaliated.

"Rorthan - is - lying. He's making up bearshit so he can act like he knows exactly what's going on... yep, he's got it all under control. And at the same time he spins a story about a bigger enemy, seeming very open and brave while he does it. He just wants us to trust and fight for him better you idiot!" Freak hissed. He was really starting to get pissed now.

"Hey, Rorthan had the best explanation of that cloud I've heard so far. You and Blaze..."

"Blazingwarri." Said Blazingwarri.

"...Blazingwarri haven't said anything, but geez, some guy saw the cloud coming and said it was going to freaking rain! And after it had passed another blamed it on a bad bonfire! I'm sick of hearing noobish ideas... it's really starting to piss me off..." said Calladus, barely restraining his annoyance and fury.

"Have you even seen what the old man did to the barbarian village? They're zombies! Every single one of them! And let me tell you, if this cloud is exactly what Rorthan said it is, then it's still no reason to join him. He is for Zamorak. We are for Saradomin." Freak argued. "That should be enough. If it isn't, then goodnight; I haven't got anything else to say."

So saying Freak blew out the lantern and got into his sleeping bag.

"Guys... please... This isn't the time to get annoyed over little arguments." Said Blazingwarri. He had sat quietly through the other's arguments, and was trying to make them see the other's side. Blazingwarri was for Saradomin, but if Zaros was pure evil, then it made sense that he was Saradomin's enemy. But Zaros was Zamorak's enemy as well... no, hang on... not Zamorak's enemy... Zamorak as he once was, maybe he was once good...

"Rorthan isn't fighting for Zamorak, the evil god we have today." Blazingwarri tried again to reconcile his friends. "He's fighting for a brave leader, a warrior, who did Runescape a great favor once, at the expense of his own pure soul..." He was going to go on how Zamorak probably wasn't Saradomin's enemy back then, but he was interrupted by Freak.

"You are for Saradomin! There is nothing right, never was about Zamorak! Don't say stuff like that again, ever. Zamorak has always been Saradomin's enemy. End of story. You are for Saradomin, or Zamorak. There's nothing else." Freak told Blazingwarri, angrily. "Go to sleep and think it over."

Blazingwarri sighed and got into his sleeping bag. He just hoped that his friends would sleep and think it over. He personally thought that Freak was wrong in refusing to help the army, and that Calladus was wrong by trying to ignore the Saradomin vs. Zamorak feuds that had continued for decades. He thought that they could still be for Saradomin, but now would be the time to ignore Zamorak and attack Zaros.

Sighing at the complicity the events had turned out into, he pushed it all to the back of his mind and fell asleep.


	18. Zamorak isn't Evil

Chapter Seventeen

Zamorak isn't Evil

"It's just a bug. Jagex will fix it up soon." I pulled my gaze from the chicken to Kryarn, unbelieving his statement and his offhand manner.

"What the hell is Jagex? And it's a dead chicken, not a bug." Parrea said.

"Yes I know it's a chicken, but Jagex is the company who makes Runescape, when stuff like this goes wrong it's just a glitch... I dunno exactly, ask the barman at the Blue Moon Inn in Varrock; he knows all about it." Replied Kryarn. Nothing he had just said made any sense to me.

"Dude, there is no Jagex. The barman you talked too was probably drunk out of his mind when he invented that up. You were probably too drunk to not accept it. When something like this happens, you can't just... just sit back and wait for some imaginary company to make it all better. This is real. And that company isn't." I told him. "Anyway, Guthix made Runescape."

"I dunno, he seemed pretty sure of himself..." Kryarn said, crestfallen. "But... wait... the chicken's dead and it isn't respawning... How long's it gonna be before all the chickens run out and we don't have feathers no more? And what if it's not only chickens; what... what if it's us as well? What if we never respawn again and just... just die and...?" Kryarn's voice was steadily getting higher and higher and more hysterical as he spoke.

"It is a good thing to see that you understand fully the situation we are in." Said Adrilor.

I was speechless. This was bad... death had always been bad... always I had lost some item of value... but never this bad...

"We should rejoin the others." Suggested Adrilor.

Silently, we trudged back to the _Flying Horse. _Everywhere, there was people... for all of them... it was just a matter of time. Passing by the marketplace, I heard the familiar shout of "Hey! Get your hands off there!"

I couldn't help it. I looked and watched the Ardougne guard attack a persistent female thief. The thief was stronger than the guard, and in five hits the guard fell... I wanted to look away, if it was true then I wanted not to look...

The guard fell...

His body lay rigid on the hard ground.

"Hey..." I heard the surprised thief say. Going up to the guard's corpse, she removed his chainmail and his mace. I saw the surprised look of elation on her face as it dawned on her that the guards would now drop steel mace and chainmail, 100 of the time. The thief lost no time in charging another guard, bringing him down to near death in three greedy, feverish blows.

A hard, sudden breeze whipped past my face. The thief girl screamed as a rune-tipped arrow thunked into her back. She fell forward against the guard... then sideways... and lay unmoving on the cobblestones.

I turned around and looked at Parrea, who was holding her bow ready in one hand. I was both shocked and incredulous at what she had just done. She had broken the long standing, unwritten law between adventurers of peace outside the wilderness... And now, that thief girl would never move again.

"They can't just kill off the guards. We need the guards to stay alive." Said Parrea, trying to justify her actions.

"Who we need more alive?" I yelled at her. "Level 44 thief or level 20 guard?"

"Here Leeana, have some cake." The thief's friend was innocently trying to revive her. Beside me, I heard a choking sob, looking, I saw that Kryarn was crying.

"Just keep going guys..." My voice sounded tight as I spoke. I turned my back on the marketplace, and walked towards the inn.

"Leeana, wake up..." I heard clearly the plaintive voice of the thief's friend, isolated in the general noise of the city.

I walked faster.

"Hang on guys, I'll meet you at the inn... later." Kryarn's voice was shuddering as he turned and walked back towards the marketplace.

We recognized that he needed to be alone, and continued without him.

We arrived at the inn, and found it deserted, except for DarknessDie sitting in the corner and Hawkfeather pacing the floor nearby. DarknessDie looked different without his imposing robes on. He was actually pretty small; just sitting in the corner like that he looked more like a scrawny, lethargic tramp than a powerful wizard. Hawkfeather looked up as we entered, and stopped pacing.

"Do you know what happened?" Hawkfeather asked.

I replied yes, and quickly explained. At the end of my explanation about the chicken, the marketplace, Parrea, Kryarn... Hawkfeather nodded.

"We're obviously in the middle of something vast, something dangerous. We must find who or what that released this cloud, and then we must destroy them." Hawkfeather said.

"Hey..." Destroy... no wait... how could we destroy something that created a cloud like that? I wasn't being negative, only realistic. "Hawkfeather, we're six fighters, and we aren't that good either, we can't..." I trailed off, hoping that he would understand. But it was Parrea that answered.

"Zanathir look at us! The weakest one here is Kryarn, and he's almost a level 80! Just cause we're not the best doesn't meant that we're not that good." She said. "Any one of us is stronger than most of Runescape's population anyway." She finished.

"Yeah, and so was whoever created that cloud." I retaliated.

"So's a fire giant!"

Hawkfeather nodded, and I saw that it would be useless to contradict, so I kept quiet. I think I actually wanted to go, and find whoever created the cloud, if only for the sake of doing something. Just sitting back, with the fear of true death everywhere... not doing anything about it... would've been torture.

"So... has anyone figured out yet who made that cloud?" Parrea asked.

"Not yet, but we should be able to discover who it is soon." Hawkfeather answered. "Any ideas?" He asked.

Ok, who would be evil enough to...

Parrea cut across my thoughts. "Zamorak." She said firmly.

"It was not the work of Zamorak." A quiet, harsh voice said. DarknessDie spoke from the dark corner of the inn, almost unnoticed.

"How... are you sure?" Said Parrea.

DarknessDie got up, and came over to the table where we were sitting. As he moved out of the shadows, his head looked oddly detached from the rest of his body. He came closer, and we saw a black collar, branded on his skin cleanly around his neck. The ring was black, black like the shade robes, standing cleanly out from his white skin.

"This is the neck that wore the cape of Zamorak, and His symbol." DarknessDie said, in a slow, harsh voice that was not unlike Kysin's. "And this..." he continued, pulling up his right sleeve as he spoke, "...is the hand that held Zamorak's staff."

The hand was black, jet black like the ring around his neck. The arm was streaked black, cleanly marking it.

"Zamorak wouldn't do this to his servant." DarknessDie said softly.

"Here, eat this..." I offered DarknessDie a shark. He shook his head.

"We already tried food." He said.

Hawkfeather nodded. "And Zamorak doesn't have the power to replace a gift from Guthix anyway."

"And what about my amulet? It... I think it stopped the cloud from affecting me." I said. "The amulet came from the elf Lord Iowerth... could he...?" I asked.

Hawkfeather nodded. "Adrilor?"

"No. Lord Iowerth is a general, he fights with crystal, not with words." The elf said.

"Hang on..." Hawkfeather said. "There's a story held by a few scattered ghosts, it tells of an Empty Lord who was more powerful than Guthix. You've probably heard of Zaros... well, it... maybe he's back."

"Do not speak his name!" Cried Adrilor. "He is the empty lord, accursed. Long have the elves paved the way for his return... But I knew not of how soon it was to be."

"So it is Zaros?" Questioned Parrea.

"When Zamorak killed Zaros..." began Hawkfeather.

"DO NOT SPEAK HIS NAME!" Said the elf, urgently.

"...Ok, when mortal Zamorak killed the Empty Lord, most of his evil power was channeled into Zamorak. Except that Zaros was a god, and probably couldn't be killed. But to come back, he'd probably need a new form, he'd have to live inside someone, or something else living." Said Hawkfeather.

"Hey, It probably was Zaros, because... oh leave it Adrilor, because that's why Kysin isn't here anymore, Kysin worshipped Zaros and now Zaros has taken him somewhere..." I said.

A few minutes later, we had arrived at much the same conclusion that Rorthan had at the noob's council. Except we knew that it was the Staff of Armadyl that had killed Zaros first, and it was likely the only weapon that could kill him again.

Our discussions were interrupted by Kryarn's arrival. He was accompanied by dead Leeana's friend, the girl in the marketplace.

"Hey, guys. What'd I miss?" Kryarn said.

"The god Zaros has returned, he created the cloud and we're going to destroy him." Summarized Hawkfeather. "Who's this?" Hawkfeather asked Kryarn, but it was the girl that answered.

"My name's Nakama and he," she gestured to Kryarn, "said I could join you." She said.

Inwardly, I groaned. Kryarn's open friendly nature had stretched too far this time. We were about to embark on a dangerous journey to destroy the greatest power since Guthix... And now we had an inexperienced girl... with fluro green hair. Knowing Kryarn, he wouldn't accept the fact that he couldn't help her easily. I looked around me. Hawkfeather was staring at Kryarn with wide open eyes, like he was trying to say something important without using words. Parrea wasn't looking at anyone; she was staring at the floor... probably remembering that it was her fault Nakama's friend was dead. Only DarknessDie remained impassive.

But then... I had a friend once... only level 14 combat, but could cast blast spells better than I could. And Parrea... best archer I'd ever seen, and four combat levels me... Still they were rare, but maybe this could be lucky...

"Hey Nakama, what's you're best skill?" I asked her.

"Mining." She answered. "I've been able to mine adamant since last Friday."

"No, I mean combat-wise. Are you a good mage or ranger or something?" I said.

She shook her head. "I don't kill, when I can help it. I killed enough to get me to a safe level, and now I don't need to kill anymore."

Great. Just... just... shit. This girl was a very inexperienced fighter (compared to the rest of us), and on top of that, she didn't want to fight. Seriously Kryarn had taken his compassion to far this time...

"Guys, it's been a long day. Let's just relax out the rest of the day, and try and conquer Zaros tomorrow." Offered Hawkfeather. His words reminded me of how tired I was.

"I should have some sleeping bags in my account." Said DarknessDie.

"You shouldn't; sleeping bags died out almost a year ago." Said Kryarn.

"I'll go check." Said DarknessDie, walking out the door. As he passed me, I noticed a red shard, a fragment of his shattered staff, clutched in his good left hand.


	19. Escape

Chapter Eighteen:

Escape

A/N: Sorry about the long wait; we've had some bug on our computer… no updates till it was fixed.

The sun's rays were just topping Ice Mountain in the east, shining pink through the heavy rain clouds. It was very early, but despite that, most members of the noob's army had woken up and were preparing breakfast. Leafdarking sat alone, on a snapped flagpole that was lying on the ground beside Burthorpe castle walls. She was watching her troops carefully.

The previous night, Rorthan had commanded her to send fifteen of her best warriors to reinforce the outpost at Morytania. She had chosen four instantly: Freakoldman, Calladus, Blazingwarri and Luthandros. The others, were harder.

And now, watching three she had picked out already, maybe it wasn't a good idea to send them off into Morytania. Freak was cooking what looked like enough chicken for her whole command, and Blazingwarri was hard at work, creating armor and weapons for the troops. Calladus was almost as good a warrior as she was; what a waste to send him off to Morytania...

"Hey! Get this friggin curse off me you noob!" Luthandros yelled, staggering drunkenly towards a noob mage, who was sprinting away as fast as his long robes would allow him. The story of how Luthandros had been owned by a level 12 mage was now well-known within the noobs camp.

Well, she knew she wouldn't miss Luthandros. Even if he stayed with her command, he probably wouldn't live longer than a few days anyway.

"Leafdarking!" Someone called.

Leafdarking snapped her head round to face the newcomer.

"Hey Radune." She greeted her fellow officer.

"Do you have anyone who can make my prisoner talk?" Wasting no time on formalities, Radune presented his problem. "The prisoner I got from Camelot, he isn't saying anything and the old man's teleported off somewhere... I've tried every sort of torture I can think off... Do you have any idea?"

Leafdarking nodded. "Some of my warriors are pretty good at that sort of stuff." She replied. "Freak! Calladus! Blazingwarri!" She reeled off names. The three friends got up and walked over.

"See if they can get him to talk." She told Radune, who nodded.

"Right you three, come here. There's this prisoner I got, you make him tell everything about the enemy's plans, the sword Excalibur, or the barbarians north of Camelot." Radune said. Without waiting for an answer, he turned and marched back to the large, solitary pine tree just south of the town. Set up beneath this tree was a rough wooden fence. Inside this fence was a person, bound hand and foot to the tree.

"Look mate, listen to us, and we'll get you out of here." Freak whispered to the prisoner as soon as Radune was out of earshot. The prisoner eyed him carefully.

"I don't care. I'm not telling you anything understand?" He said.

Freak turned to his comrades.

"Guys, we need a plan." He said.

In the next ten minutes, they had a good, almost foolproof plan to free the prisoner. The prisoner had stood, bound to his tree, not speaking nor moving throughout the entire discussion.

Walking purposefully to the rough wooden gate, Calladus opened it and called Radune.

"Well? What has he told you?" Asked the noob commander impatiently.

"As of yet nothing is what he has told us, him being of a both very stubborn and arrogant nature which together creates a difficult..." Calladus spoke quickly. All the noobs guarding the enclosure had been listening attentively to Calladus's report, but the complexity of his words was enough to focus all their attention and brainpower on him, on trying to figure out what he was saying.

So it was that no one noticed Blazingwarri slip out of the enclosure and sprint off to a safe distance away.

"...So, that is to say, assuming that rocks don't normally cry as hard as the tears of Guthix, we have been able to extract nothing as of yet from this prisoner." Calladus finished his long and confusing report when he saw that Blazingwarri had disappeared.

Radune was staring at Calladus, incredulity written all over his tanned face. Turning to Freak, he ordered, "Repeat what he just said." Freak obliged.

"My friend just wanted to tell you that we haven't learnt anything off the prisoner yet, and we haven't had breakfast yet, so could we please go and eat after another few minutes here?"

Radune nodded. "Ok, another ten minutes here, then you come straight back after you're done eating." He said.

Freak and Calladus went back inside the enclosure, surprised, yet suspicious.

"Leafdarking would never give us time off to eat. He knows something Freak." Said Calladus.

Freak was more optimistic. "He's just a friendly guy or something. Don't worry." He told Calladus.

Freak turned to the prisoner. "Hey, we're gonna help you out of here... just, cooperate, ok?" He said, and began to untie the prisoner's bonds, explaining the plan while he did so. "See this steel helm? You're gonna wear it out of here, so you look like our friend Blazingwarri. We should be going to Morytania sometime soon; we'll all be safe there."

The prisoner gave a dry laugh. "Since when's Morytania been safe?" He said.

"Since everywhere else got more dangerous." Replied Calladus. "I'm Calladus by the way, and this here is Freak. We're all in a small anti-noob clan, and we're going to Morytania real soon, to reinforce the noob's army there. If we work it right, you're coming too."

The prisoner hesitated a moment, then answered. "My name's Raneundead, but everyone calls me Rane. Called me Rane, I guess, cause I don't think there's anyone living anymore who ever called me that."

Freak felt a pang of sympathy for the warrior. He took longer over untying the rest of the ropes, hoping that Blazingwarri had had enough time...

Once he was a safe distance away from the makeshift prison, Blazingwarri had gone straight to Leafdarking. She wasn't hard to find. Indeed, she was in the same place she had been about fifteen minutes earlier. On the flagpole, watching her troops.

"Captain Leafdarking." Blazingwarri greeted carefully.

"Yeah, what." She responded.

"Ah... who were you going to send to Morytania?" Blazingwarri blurted out his question. He had neither Kryarn's or Calladus's gift for smooth talk. He was a miner, an explorer, not a politician.

"You for one." Leafdarking snapped back. "You and your two weirdo friends. And that idiot Luthandros." Leafdarking shut her mouth and glared at Blazingwarri. "Why you wanna know, anyway?"

"Oh um, just wondering if you were sending me or, and any of my friends." Blazingwarri said, his words tripping over each other in his nervousness. "Well I have this friend who wants to go to Morytania and..." He continued.

"Who." Said Leafdarking, more of an order than a question.

"Ah, his name's um..." Blazingwarri quickly searched for a name. Seeing the rubble that was once the walls of Burthorpe castle, he went on. "...Brick...34. His name's Brick34."

Leafdarking thought a little. Blazingwarri was a good smith, but he was fairly reclusive and didn't have many friends that she knew about. Only friends she knew he had were people she didn't like, such as Freak and Calladus. Also, she didn't know she had someone in her troop called Brick34. Well, every band of noobs got stragglers in all the time, or noobs furtively changing commands. And if he made friends with people like Blazingwarri, she was pretty certain she didn't want him.

"Sure. You, Freak, Calladus, Luthandros, Brick34 and some others." She said.

"Thanks, well... see ya." Blazingwarri said, and walked quickly away. He was extremely surprised that Leafdarking had actually fallen for it. The commander almost called him back. She knew he was up to something, but it didn't matter now... he would be in Morytania by midday anyway.

Blazingwarri returned to the campfire, where he was shortly joined by Freak, Calladus and Rane. Blazingwarri told them what he had organized with Leafdarking.

"Couldn't you have thought of a better name than Brick?" Said Rane, annoyed. Rane like his name, and wasn't very happy that he would be known as 'Brick34' for a fair while.

"So, we got Raneundead out alright, and any hour now we should go to Morytania, taking Rane with us. While we're within earshot of the noobs, Rane will be known as Brick. That right?" Asked Freak. The others nodded.


	20. The Gates of Morytania

Chapter Nineteen:

The Gates of Morytania

"Ok you lot. Those of you who can teleport to Varrock, take some runes from that pile and do so. The rest of you, line up over here." Skraine ordered the assorted collection of noobs from Leafdarking's and Radune's command. About a third of the noobs moved forward to take runes from pile. They stretched out their arms, and teleported. Blazingwarri watched as his three friends, Radune, and a few others shrunk out of sight.

"The rest of you," Skraine addressed the noobs who couldn't teleport, "Line up here NOW so I can teleother you." Leafdarking watched in satisfaction as the most annoying members of her command left.

"And you," Skraine turned to her when he had teleported all the noobs, "Make ready the rest of your lot. You are to have moved in to Camelot and taken the village near there by tonight."

It wasn't long before the group of noobs, about thirty of them, arrived in Varrock. Led by Radune, they quickly covered the distance between the ruins of Varrock and the temple that guarded the only known entrance to Morytania. The shouts of the noobs already stationed there reached their ears from a good distance.

"Aw... scared of the little doggy are ya?"

"But it's a big dog."

"And the bats... you don't like the bats neither."

"AAHHHH!"

Laughter broke out in the camp as the reinforcements arrived. Freak quickly located the source of laughter. A level 36, who looked as if one of his parents were either troll or giant, was holding a small squeaking bat in the face of a level 28 guy who was clearly terrified of bats.

"Make camp!" Radune ordered, ignoring the source of laughter.

Freak, Blazingwarri, Calladus and Rane (aka Brick34) chose a sheltered place beside the towering cliff that closed in the camp. Once everything had been dumped, Rane looked around him. There were two huge cliffs on either side of the path, to the north and south. The road they had come from led to a large temple that looked like a dilapidated monastery or church. The cliffs were gray. The temple was gray. The road was gray. The graveyard near the temple was gray. Everywhere was covered with a fine dust from the nearby limestone mines. Everything was gray.

Rane remembered back to when he was still at Camelot. He had been an ordinary, roving adventurer like 90 of Runescape's population. Then he had seen the legends guild. He swore to himself, one day, he would be a member of that guild. His journeys had taken him to Camelot, where King Arthur had sent him on a mission, resulting in him becoming a Knight of the Round Table. As a gift for completing this mission, King Arthur had granted Rane his own sword, the magical sword Excalibur. Even now, in this place so close to Morytania, Rane could feel the sword's weight, strapped to his back beneath his cloak.

Morytania. In his days in King Arthur's court, Rane had heard the place spoke of only in whispers, mentioned in dusty old books as 'The origin of all evil" and "Men do not go there, for it's inhabitants are far from hospitable..." And now, Rane could see this land for himself. Past the temple, he could see a bright, sparkling river. This he assumed was the holy river that kept all evil in Morytania at bay. But past the river, someone had turned the lights down. It was about midday, and the sun shone bright. But on the other side of the river, it was the dimness of dusk or dawn. In the dim Morytanian light, Rane thought he saw something move. He tried to focus on it, through the darkness that shrouded that land.

"Hey Brick! Come here a sec!"

Rane sighed. He knew he wasn't going to get used to that name anytime soon.

The sun was sending its last tired rays down the road that Radune's command had traveled earlier that day. Rane was, again, staring off into the shadowed land Morytania. He had more than caught a glimpse of something. Different things, some small and pale, some fast and gray, some that looked more like hot air than anything else. He could also see strange lights, lights that moved, that glowed...

"It's a strange place, isn't it?" Said a voice. Rane turned quickly, startled; he hadn't known anyone was there. Beside him, leaning on the fence was the little 28 guy who was afraid of bats and apparently dogs as well.

"What are those things?" Rane asked, exasperated as another figure slipped in and out of sight again.

"That? That was a giant bat." Replied 28. Rane nodded. He had seen giant bats before.

"Are they all giant bats?" He asked.

"No." 28 replied. "The big gray ones are bats. The pale white ones are ghouls, the hot steams are ghasts, the howling you hear are werewolves, any one of those bats out there could be vampires."

Rane looked closer, interested. He had seen bats before, all different shapes and sizes, but never a ghast, ghoul, vampire or werewolf before.

"And what are those little lights, the ones that keep flashing?" He asked.

"Swamp lights, willow-the-whisps. They're nothing, just little harmless bugs. Just if you're ever lost, don't follow them cause they'll lead you into the swamp." 28 said. A fast but disturbing image flitted across Rane's mind. Himself, hopelessly lost in that dark place, following the bugs, desperate for any form of light... falling in the swamp, trying to climb out... pale white hands, ghouls, vampires... reaching for him...

Despite himself, Rane shuddered. Level 28 watched him, interested.

"Kinda scary huh. Y'know, it scares me too. Especially the bats. But none of them are scared of it, somehow." He said, gesturing towards the main group of noobs.

Rane looked at him. "Hey what's your name?" He asked.

"I'm Dunan0, but that's only cause someone else in this land took the name Dunan. I've never met him, so I'm just called Dunan." Dunan said. "Hey what are you called?" He asked.

Rane hesitated, then answered. "My name's Raneundead, but it's shortened to Rane. Just all the other noobs call me Brick34." He said. He couldn't explain why, but for some reason he trusted this little fellow, Dunan.

"Brick34... That doesn't sound much like Rane. Doesn't sound you like it much either." Dunan replied.

"I don't like it, didn't even choose it. It's Blazingwarri's fault..." Rane found himself explaining everything. From Camelot, to the noobs, to the escape, to him eventually arriving at Morytania.

"Hey that's some story." Dunan said when Rane had finished. "Me, I was offered a place in this army like two minutes after I got off Tutorial Island. I didn't know anything then, but now I reckon that this isn't a very good idea. I mean, they're all going on about a massive war, searching for something... Hey I've seen the size of this army. I don't think it's doing the right thing, but I'm just glad I'm on their side. The side that's gonna survive is this one I reckon."

A series of whistles and catcalls from the main body of noobs caught Rane and Dunan's attention. Most of the noobs were staring at a scruffy, red-haired mage who had just entered the camp. Rane watched as two noobs approached her. Rane wasn't close enough to catch what they was saying, but he saw her unceremoniously and unmercifully whack them over the head with her staff, shouting as she hit them. Rane only caught the one word; "Perverts!"

"What's wrong with him?" Dunan asked, calling Rane's attention to Luthandros, who sprinted towards and inside the temple. Rane laughed as the red-haired mage's identity hit him. He quickly told Dunan the story of Luthandros, how he had been owned by a powerful level 12 girl mage.

"Is she with you guys?" Asked Dunan. Rane shook his head. He was pretty sure she hadn't journeyed from Burthorpe with his group. They watched the red-haired girl walk towards where the Black guard was sitting.

"Come on." Said Rane, beginning to walk towards his friends. "Hey, what's up?" He asked, as Dunan spun around and faced Morytania, his breathing ragged and a look of abject terror on his face.

Dunan slowly shook his head. "I don't know. Just can't forget that those things are always there." He said, still staring out over the river.

"Well, the ghouls and things are over there, and we're over here." Replied Rane.

"Yeah, but there's just that river there separating us. And one old monk keeping the river holy. And vampires can fly and ghasts can float and if anything jumps from that cliff over there they could probably cross..." Dunan replied.

Rane listened impassively. "Ok, now you're just being paranoid. What creature could jump from that cliff over the river, and survive? Nothing's ever crossed that river before since I've been here anyway." He said. "Come on, I'm starving." Together they walked back to Freak, Calladus, Blazingwarri and the red-haired sorceress.

Calladus looked up as they approached. "Hey Brick, who's your friend?" He asked.

Rane introduced Dunan, then sat down and helped himself to one of the steaks, done to perfection by Freak. "He knows my name isn't Brick, its Rane." Added Rane.

"Ok... hey Dunan, can you not tell Radune or anyone that his name's Rane?" Asked Blazingwarri.

Dunan nodded. "Yeah he already told me everything, like how you guys helped him escape and all that." He said.

"Hey Cerrin, did you really beat up Luthandros?" Dunan asked Cerrin Wyver, the red-haired mage. She looked confused.

"Not really; I did rescue a guy he had tied up and lowered his strength a fair bit... But, no I didn't beat him up at all." She replied. "How'd you hear?" She asked.

"Ah, it's just this rumor going around; Luthandros got owned by a level 12 girl." Said Calladus. "You know how rumors grow. And now everyone in the camp knows how you single-handedly beat Luthandros up."

She grinned. "Nice." She said.

A moment later, "What's down that hole?" She asked.

The hole she was referring to was the covered trapdoor, the one that led through a winding tunnel, the tunnel guarded by a huge monster that was supposed to be a dog.

"Down that hole there's a priest at the end of a tunnel; he keeps the water holy and the evil in Morytania." Dunan answered. Cerrin looked interested.

"I've heard about that. There are so many stories about the evil in Morytania and the one river and priest that keeps it all in." She said. "But none of the creatures in Morytania sound so bad; I mean, none of them are immune to magic are they?"

"Immune to magic? Nothing's immune to magic!" Cried Calladus.

"Yeah, apparently there's this huge green demon owned by some gnome called Glough; the demon's supposed to be immune to magic." She shuddered. "Now that is evil."

"Well don't ask us; you seem to know more than we do." Said Rane, in response to her first question.

"Hey is that priest still keeping the river holy by using Runestones and the power of Saradomin?" Cerrin asked.

Rane nodded. "He was about two weeks ago; I supplied like enough Rune Essence to keep that river holy for a decade."

Cerrin looked thoughtful. "That's not really good enough. He should be using the power of Guthix, and probably soul runes instead." She said. "I'll go fix it."

Cerrin got up, and walked towards the trapdoor. "Cerrin wait!" Called Rane.

"Yeah?" She called back.

"What if it goes wrong and you let the evil pass? I don't think it's a good idea." Rane told her.

"Don't worry!" She called back. Rane watched her messy shock of red-hair disappear into the ground. "Doesn't she ever listen?"

"Never." Answered Blazingwarri.


	21. Capture the Staff

Chapter Twenty

Capture the Staff

A/N: This chapter begins where chapter 17 left off.

Darknessdie returned not long after with plenty of sleeping bags. The largest remaining piece of his shattered Zamorakian staff now hung on a string around his neck. A lot had happened in the last few days. Up until now, the largest thing that had happened in my life was the invention of farming. Only a few days it had been, six at the most, since I had been aimlessly ranging chickens in Lumbridge.

As I fell asleep, my mind worked over what I'd heard. I hadn't known anything so complicated since I had agreed to help a merchant in Al Kharid, Ali Morrisane, to find his nephew, also called Ali. The nephew Ali apparently lived in a little backwater village called Pollinevech south of the Shantay Pass, south of the desert. Problem was every single person in that town seemed to be called Ali. Don't think I even found the right Ali.

But it didn't matter now. I was too tired for anything really to matter now. All that mattered was rest. I fell asleep not long after.

The early morning sun shone bright inside the _Flying Horse Inn, _throwing its light on five sleeping adventures. Light also shone on a lone figure, seated on the roof of the inn that seemed to be consulting with a seagull. Another figure was seated alone inside the inn, at one of the table. With a knife, he was carving patterns in the table top. A closer look would've revealed complicated strategies being embedded into the wooden surface. Lacking paper and charcoal, Hawkfeather made do with what materials he had. He had been up since first light, planning the best way to go about defeating a powerful, evil god.

"Obviously not through strength." Hawkfeather had ascertained quickly. He had no doubts of being able to amass a huge army of adventurers to battle the evil, but his knowledge was that the forces of evil was vast, more powerful than anything ever before. Elves, vampires, werewolves and Kalphites were but a few of the races that he knew would aid Zaros.

Zaros had once been almost killed by the staff of Armadyl. Perhaps if they were able to get hold of that staff, then kill Zaros with it...

That seemed to be the most logical course of action, though Hawkfeather knew well that obtaining the staff and killing Zaros with it would be far more difficult than anything any adventurer had ever attempted, or indeed been able to attempt, before.

Gently Hawkfeather roused his sleeping companions. As soon as they were fully awake, and Adrilor had come inside from the roof, Hawkfeather outlined his plan to get the staff of Armadyl and kill Zaros with it.

"The staff of Armadyl is inside the temple of Ikov." Parrea said. "The limping black guy that was hanging around here earlier told me to steal for him, but I swapped sides and killed him instead."

"You killed him, so how's he still here yesterday?" Kryarn asked.

Parrea looked at him strangely. "Cause he respawned you noob. But he's not here now; I think he went with the Cloud like Kysin did. Anyway, I gotta key to the back door of that temple; the door is just north of Mcgrubors." Hawkfeather nodded.

"Ok Parrea, get that key and teleport to Camelot as soon as you have it." He said.

Hawkfeather was unprepared for her flat refusal. "I'm not going anywhere near Camelot." She said. I had forgotten that the knights of Camelot were still pursuing her.

"Parrea and I will walk." Said Kryarn, jumping at the chance to avoid teleportation.

Hawkfeather sighed. "Guys, it would be so much faster to teleport." Parrea's glare stopped him. "Ok, we'll run. Go get that key Parrea."

The seven adventurers jogged north, Parrea making a short detour to the bank.

We reached the door north of McGrubor's wood quickly. Parrea opened the door, and we went inside. I had never been inside the temple of Ikov before. Rumors I had heard of the place had me prepared to meet hordes of ghosts and elemental warriors. Not normal, human looking paladins. One of them stopped us as we entered.

"Halt, in the name of Armadyl the wise!" The paladin commanded.

"Hey, it's me remember? I killed Lucien for you guys!" Parrea protested.

The paladin looked closely at Parrea. "Yes, I remember you. And the elf is familiar. You may pass."

The paladin stood aside, and we walked in. The room inside was painted gray. It was built as a strange maze, with few luxuries for the paladins. I questioned Parrea as to where they slept, what they ate, drank, how did they survive down here?

"It's the power of Armadyl that keeps them going." She replied. "The blessed liquid they drink."

There were a fair number of Paladins, and they were formidable enemies. Hawkfeather messaged me, and everyone else in the group.

"Parrea grabs the staff, we tele out of here to Lumbridge." I caught his eye, and nodded to assert I had gotten the message. To avoid suspicion, I looked around the room. The paladins were so much like the ones in Ardougne; they arrested little of my attention. But a strange movement on one of the walls did. The walls were gray, and shadowed. But in the shadows, I thought I could make out a figure of something, or someone. I tapped Hawkfeather's shoulders to gain his attention.

"What's that?" I asked, gesturing towards the wall. Before Hawkfeather could answer, a strangely shaped staff appeared near the almost invisible figure. The staff moved, and a gleaming white ball of energy formed in front of the figure. I heard the command.

"HIDE!" Yelled Hawkfeather. I dove for cover behind one of the walls. Not fast enough. I felt the spell hit me. It was unlike any spell I had experienced before. The first blast slammed the air out of my lungs, making me gasp painfully. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. Frightened, I opened my eyes and looked out through a case of solid ice. I was facing the staff of Armadyl. Helplessly, I watched the chameleon figure take the holy staff, stretch out his arms, and teleport. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw identical blocks of ice, encasing the paladins and my companions.

The ice disappeared, evaporating in a second. I found I could breathe again, move again. I grabbed a shark from my pack and ate it.

"What was that?" Screamed Kryarn, fear written all over his simple face.

"That was just a human, wearing ghost's robes and wielding a staff of ancient magiks. Better question is, where did he go?"

'Hey, um... I know how to figure out where he went." Nakama said from the corner of the room. She was crouched beside a chair, which she had apparently hidden under when the ghostly mage had appeared.

"How?" Said Hawkfeather.

Nakama held up what looked like a small crystal ball. "This is a device of the Falador Temple Knights; if someone has teleported somewhere it can track them, if they can't be found then they leave something behind to show where they sort of are. We go to that place, and scan the area for them with this orb. Then it reveals them." She explained.

"What do ya mean, where they sort of are. You can't sort of be somewhere. It's either here, or there, or in between when teleporting." Said Hawkfeather.

Nakama shook her head. "That's how it is for most people, but some powerful mages, like Solus Dellegar and the one that was here a minute ago, can stretch themselves between two dimensions. So like they're halfway between the place where they teleported to and the place they travel through when teleporting."

Well, I'm glad it all made perfect sense to her. I didn't get it. I looked around me. Kryarn caught my eye and shrugged. Hawkfeather was nodding slowly.

"So there'd be so little matter of themselves in either place, that they'd be nearly invisible." He said. Nakama nodded.

"How did you create a thing like that." The harshness in Darknessdie's voice surprised me.

"I don't know, I didn't create it." Said Nakama, nervously. "Noe... I mean Savant, created it."

"Hidden teleportation has been one of the greatest, most closely guarded secrets of the Zamorak mages for years." Darknessdie stated, not bothering to conceal the rage in his voice, rage at this device which had found the weakness of hidden teleportation.

"Not so my friend, for your kind learnt it off the elves, as did the mages of Zaros. Tis an elven secret, stolen by few such as yourself." Said Adrilor.

"Wait. So you can both teleport like this?" Asked Nakama, incredulously.

Teleport like what? I had totally no idea. Hawkfeather now looked confused; Kryarn had lost interest and was amiably chatting to a paladin. Parrea was looking intently at Darknessdie and Adrilor. Both the elf and mage nodded in response to Nakama's question.

"Ok, so the mage that stole the staff, he left this behind." Said Nakama, gesturing towards a large keg of beer. I was sure that keg of beer hadn't been there when we arrived.

"Wait, so if we find out where this keg comes from, then we go to that place and activate the orb, the mage will appear." Hawkfeather said slowly.

"Yep." Said Parrea.

"How'd you know all that?" I asked her.

"I've been in the temple knights for ages." She said. "I used a device like that one to track down Solus Dellegar."

I still wasn't very sure as to how it all worked, but I understood that the mage would be at the place where that keg of beer came from. Adrilor ran his hands over the keg. I saw his lips moved, but couldn't hear the spell that came from them. Before my eyes, the wooden lid of the keg vanished under the power of the elf's incantation. Adrilor dipped his fingers into the keg, and tasted them.

"It is beer, but without the side affects that is attributed to most."

"Hey it's non-alcoholic beer." Said Kryarn, breaking off his conversation long enough to taste the beer. "The poison seller near Camelot sells stuff like this."

Hawkfeather nodded. "Good, so that's where our mage will be."

"Do we have to go to Camelot?" Parrea still looked uncertain.

"Relax; the knights have probably forgotten you by now. After the cloud and all." I reassured her.

"Ok, let's go." Said Parrea.

I thought it would be simple; just go to Camelot, gang up on this rogue mage and steal the staff. Sure, it was obviously a powerful mage, but we were also powerful - when given fair warning.

But our troubles began as soon as we got in sight of the Seers Village.

Leafdarking stood in the ruins of Pete's Party room, watching her noobs take the Seers village. It was easier than she had expected; the seers there had apparently not foreseen her arrival, and so the citizens of the village were not warned and were in total disarray. Her command had basically taken the village now. She was proud of the way they had exhibited battle tactics; not just swinging their weapons left and right but working to preserve themselves as well. The dead bodies of seers and citizens that lined the streets were proof that death was now final.

She called a handful of noobs over, and stationed them around the village, to warn of any attacks from the barbarian province to the north, or Ardougne army from the south west.

"Captain Leafdarking!" A noob sentry called from his post at the far north west corner of the village, after he had been at the post for about fifteen minutes. Leafdarking ran over, and watched the small group of high-leveled adventurers jog towards her command from the direction of McGrubor's wood.

Quickly assessing the skills of her opponents, Leafdarking rapped out a few well-chosen orders.

"Hey it's a noob. Should I shoot him?" Parrea asked.

"No, we can't just kill now. Let him live if at all possible."

"Hey look, they're actually organized, with a leader."

"What kinda noob clan's been smart enough for leaders?"

"They run for ambush. Hawkfeather, should we not journey around the village?"

"No, we'd have to pass close to them anyway."

I watched the noobs scramble for cover amongst the ruined buildings. There was a pink and black figure yelling at the other noobs; from this distance it was impossible to make out more than the indistinct colors. We ran closer.

Prayer is perhaps the greatest gift the gods ever gave to adventurers, next to respawns. Zaros had killed life, but he couldn't destroy our faith. As we neared the village, I heard a screamed command, "FIRE!" I prayed that ranged missiles would have no effect, and kept running. Most arrows missed, but those that would've hit me sped straight through my body, like I wasn't even there.

We were in the village now. Behind me, on the uneven road, I heard a splash. The sound it made reminded me horribly of a daganoth's slimy foot hitting bare rock. I quickly switched prayers - but not quick enough. Like in a dream, from a figure I could see but wasn't focusing on, I saw it ready its water spell. As the spell flew towards me, I ran faster, attempting to get out of its path. The noob had planned, if noobs do such things, well. He had thrown the water bolt into the path I was taking. The spell struck me squarely on the shoulder, throwing me off balance. I fell sideways, too fast to comprehend what was happening. I turned to break my fall. My arms were too slow; my head slammed against the ground before I could react. Screaming. Someone was screaming and shaking me. I closed my eyes, and breathed the dying, rattling breath that I had breathed so many times before.


	22. Kalphites

Chapter Twenty-one

Kalphites

Everything was dim, going black. Then everything jerked sharply into focus. I was standing on top of a large heap of rubble. Looking around me, I could see achingly familiar signs in among the ruins. A flag, a staff with a question mark topping it, a spinning wheel... Lumbridge. I had arrived back in Lumbridge. How...

I remembered, and silently thanked Guthix for the green jewel that hung around my neck, the pendant of trust from Lord Iowerth that enabled me to survive the cloud. Because of it, when I had died, I had simply respawned it Lumbridge castle. Or more accurately, where Lumbridge castle would normally have stood. As far as I could see, the place was deserted. The noobs that had attacked from the HAM headquarters were certainly not there now.

I took stock of my supplies. I still held my whip, my amulet of glory and my pendant from Lord Iowerth. Everything else - my cape, potions, food... gone. I cursed the noobs and their magic. I concluded that rejoining my friends would obviously be my course of action, but how to get from Lumbridge to Camelot quickly and safely without teleportion was beyond me.

The nearest bank I knew of were the banks of Draynor and Al Kharid. I remembered that the noobs had attacked from the south west, so I turned my steps towards Al Kharid.

The guards were not there. The fence that separated Al Kharid from Misthalin was almost decimated, lying haphazardly on the ground. I stepped over it, and entered the dry land.

"Captain Killerbum!" a noob called, racing towards the captain from the south.

After the noob's council at Burthorpe, Killerbum had been relieved of his position in Morytania. He had left five troops there, and brought the rest to Camelot like he had been ordered. Rorthan had inspected his troops, then sent him onto Al Kharid with special orders to guard the southern pass very closely.

For the love of anything Killerbum couldn't see why Rorthan had bothered to station an entire command here. There was heat, lots of that, sand, even more of that. A few camels and scorpions that had been slaughtered during the first hour of Killerbum's reign. Except for a few that were on guard duty at the southern pass, his command sat around drinking, eating kebabs, trying to ride the camels they had left alive, hitting each other with rubber chickens, or playing with spinning plates, toy horses, yo-yo's... Doing nothing.

Killerbum was lying in the shade, half-asleep, when the sentry from the south approached him. Killerbum stood up to hear what made one of his noobs run.

"Killerbum, sir, there's something from the south, like a huge cloud or sheet or something that covers the ground, its coming fast come quick and see!" The noob panted urgently.

Killerbum gave a swift nod, and raced towards the Shantay Pass with the noob chasing after him. He gave no thought to the possible consequences of leaving most of his battalion alone and leaderless...

"H3Y, L00C! H1GH 13V31!1" one of the noobs moronically screamed. The fact that he had yelled had gotten the noobs' attention. Giving a few minutes to work out what he just said, they all jumped up and ran to look to where their comrade was pointing.

Approaching them from the north was indeed, a high level. A high level carrying a strange whip and wearing a pendant that shone bright green.

"Wad u th1nc h3z h0l)1ng/"

"L3v3l 90!11"

"L3TZ G3T 1M!111!11"

"Y3Rh L3TS K1LL 1M!1"

Two noobs dashed off towards the high level. Most of the noobs gave up on trying to interpret each other's speech, and followed the first noobs, running towards the high level.

I saw the noobs before they saw me, and wished I had Parrea with me now. I could see a few, all hand-to-hand warriors. No mages or rangers. With prayer, I had no doubts of my ability to destroy them all. I watched two of them breakaway from the bunch, and run towards me. The rest followed suite. I stopped walking, and waited on a grassy hillside for them to come. While I was waiting, I messaged Hawkfeather telling him that I was ok and in Lumbridge.

"My friend." The soft, low voice sounded as if it came from inches behind me. Despite myself, my skin crawled under it's tone. Turning, I looked into the pale, shadowed face of Darknessdie.

Darknessdie gave no indication he had noticed me shudder. He looked over my shoulder at the noobs approaching and said, "Let me stop them."

Without waiting for an answer, Darknessdie moved in front of me, a little way down the slope. With hands and words, gestures and sounds that I had never before heard, he wove a faint wall of gray in front of him, and about four paces to either side. It sounded like some elven spell; the words ran together like a song in Adrilor's language. Though it was not Adrilor's voice. Darknessdie's was slower, hyptonizingly low and powerful. The gray wall seemed to became more real, and less illusion as the spell progressed.

When the noobs where mere paces away from him, Darknessdie raised his hands, threw them out in front of him, and stopped talking. The wall he had conjured was moving. Forward, away from the mage and towards the noobs. Like a sheet of water, gray water, it moved, gathering speed as it traveled.

It collided with the first two noobs at once. It passed over the two noobs, and reformed itself on the other side of them. The first two noobs fell on the ground. Then I saw it, what this spell was doing. I was horrified. I looked at Darknessdie incredulously. Seeing my expression, and mistaking it for one of awe he explained, "It's a Necromancer's spell, taught to me by Morak who learnt it off Iban son of Zamorak himself."

I was sickened. The wall had been pale gray when it reached the first two noobs. But when it had passed over the two, its color took on an obvious pink tinge. The two noobs on the ground, their skin was the pure, deadly white I had seen on only one other creature before. The soulless adventurers lost in the Underground Pass. Pure, unscathed white. Bloodless. As it had passed them, the wall had absorbed every molecule of their blood into itself.

The wall had reached the rest of the noobs now. I turned away, as their yells were silenced.

"Come my friend, we need their bank." Said Darknessdie. I followed him to the Al Kharid bank. I didn't mean to, didn't even want to, but I did. I glanced back at the noobs, or what had once been a healthy bunch of stupid noobs. Now a group of thin, white, human-like figures lay on the ground. Their clothing had been torn; their armor had been scratched badly as if by a giant claw. Behind the group of still, unmoving zombies was a gray, ruined wall of Al Kharid. It was once gray. Now, it dripped with red. The magical sheet had splashed against the wall, depositing it's cargo of blood upon it.

"They will wake, as soulless as those forever lost in the pass." Darknessdie said, softly as he followed my gaze.

I turned and continued to the bank.

Killerbum reached the only pass into the desert in minutes. Panting slightly, he ran to the only gate into the desert and looked out. It didn't even take him a second to see what his sentry had reported. Even through the desert haze, the sand was white, or yellow; interspersed with mirages of water and shade. But from the south-west, the sand was dark. And it seemed to be moving. The heat of the desert made everything move. But this seemed to be moving more than usual.

Killerbum ran to the side of the pass, and climbed the rocks to the top of the hill so he could see better. He had a good view of the desert from up here. He could see the dark ground. He could see that it was no illusion or mirage, as well. As he strained his eyes to make out what the dark ground was, trying to perceive some detail that would explain the ground's odd behavior, he found it. His vision swum before his eyes, but he was sure he could make out what it was. Or more accurately, what they were. Instead of the ground being dark, as he had assumed, it was covered.

Killerbum rubbed his eyes, only to stare out into the desert for longer. He was accustomed to spiders, beetles, rats, mice, flies... especially flies since he had moved to the desert. But what he was seeing now... Creatures. Creatures that vaguely resembled beetles... only they were so big. Giant. And there were thousands of them. Thousands of them, pouring out of this one small hole in the distance, to the south-west, moving towards the pass...

Killerbum blinked his eyes, once, twice. He looked again. The giant beetles were still there. He called one of the noob sentries to him. "What do you see there?" Killerbum asked, pointing to the giant insects.

"There's like bugs, like big beetle thingys. Omg, there's like hundreds of them! And look at that one there! It's absolutely giant, and it's leading them! Are they reinforcements, sir? Sir?" Killerbum was halfway down the slope before the noob had completed his observation. He messaged Rorthan, quickly. The reply from the leader came almost instantly.

"Get your troops out of there..."


	23. The Minions of Zaros

A/N: Sorry this chapter took so long, the computer hard drive died when this chapter was almost finished. Everything on that hard drive got deleted. So I had to rewrite this chapter again. After we got a new hard drive and the internet up and Word reloaded… you get it. Anyways, it's here now, don't panic, I haven't stopped writing.

Chapter Twenty-Two:

The Minions of Zaros

Black. Darkness. Everything was dark, a tone so penetratingly full it was more real, more perceivable than Kysin's own hands and feet. It was potent, as if full of power awaiting the signal that would unleash it. Kysin could feel it eating into him, dissolving his own flesh, bone, erasing his very existence. But he was not afraid. Instead he was calm, elated. He felt every bit as powerful as the cloud that carried him now.

A castle. Or more accurately, a room. A large, stone room of shadows. Gold, gold colour, powerful, gold pulsing through the deadly pall of black darkness. Kysin could see. He wouldn't have described any of the powerful colours as being light, yet he could see; he could perceive his surroundings. He saw the room he was in, he saw faithful adventurers like himself everywhere. Surrounding him, trapped in this hall... He saw the throne at one end of the room. On that throne sat a figure, enclosed within a robe of gold, gold that repelled yet enticed black darkness to its being.

The sight was... different. More spectacular and dreamlike in it's quality than Kysin had ever imagined. The figure on the throne, he looked almost human. Larger than life, had he been standing up he would've towered over the tallest man. It was impossible to make out anything past his general figure. The gold, black shadows hid him well.

The figure hadn't even spoken, and Kysin knew who he was.

"Charos." He murmured. The name was caught up on the lips of the hundreds of adventurers in that room. Charos, the diplomat. The skilled spokesman, the one who could charm anybody to do anything. The man who could persuade the most devout Saradominist to join Zamorak. The mortal man so skilled, he was often hailed as a god. A god of cunning, of strategy, and of lies. A god who served Zaros with devotion that matched very few others.

The ethereal gold dancing around the arms of the throne rose, and revealed two long, skinny hands, that Charos had raised for silence and attention. He got it. Not one adventurer moved.

Charos spoke. Though neither Kysin nor anyone else in the room at that time could repeat what had been said to them, they knew that their loyalty to the Empty Lord had been cemented. Charos was speaking less with his mouth now, preferring leaving the cold, heavy silence intact. He was using his mind. As one, his audience picked up, and understood. Charos addressed each one of them in turn, with the same lack of words he had used at the end of his speech. Finally he turned to Kysin.

"Staff..."

With that one word, Kysin pieced together his assignment. The staff of Armadyl. He was required to find it, and bring it to Charos.

Charos turned to Biohazardluver.

"Ring... Mine... Return..." Bio got it. The Ring of Charos wasn't in Charos's possession anymore. He had to find it, and return it to Charos.

It was a while, a few hours at least, for Charos to talk to every single adventurer individually. But in that place, there was no time. There was simply Charos, and the potent magic of his words. Kysin couldn't even begin to imagine what the Empty Lord's palace would look like, if his diplomat's place was so vibrant with black power, shot through with gold...

"Go... Emptiness sustains all..." Charos spoke in a slow voice, almost drawling, his words leaden with power.

Kysin felt himself lifted. He saw the gold and black room of Charos disintegrate. The black held him, hid him... He was moving again...

Kysin had always liked the darkness. Wherever he went, darkness and shadows had been his friend, his form of camouflage. In the shadows, he was invisible. A cobra, a lethal weapon of death for any that lacked his skill of hunting in darkness. Daylight, on the other hand, left Kysin feeling exposed, unsafe. Kysin's main enemy was always some form of human. Some form of creature that lived in daylight, and slept in darkness. In daylight, they were at the advantage. Light was their time, their element, the setting in which they felt most comfortable, most formidable. Kysin preferred those weak, helpless, broken by their deadened eyesight, jumping at every unknown sound that tends to appear at night.

The darkness now was not leaving him. In front of him, around him, turning, behind him. Ardougne. Western Ardougne. Kysin was in Western Ardougne. But the darkness was there. He could feel it. It wasn't the darkness that hid him normally. The darkness that consumed him now was powerful, potent, strong. Kysin's eyesight was tuned to the daylight that was present, but yet the darkness was there. Somewhere. Inside of him, part of him. The plague-ridden citizens of West Ardougne nervously walked away from him, staring at him lest he make any sudden moves.

Inside one of the buildings, was a cracked mirror. Kysin stopped in front of the window, and looked in. The mirror threw back his reflection, it's defects distorting the picture slightly. Kysin had seen himself reflected in a mirror before. And his outer appearance hadn't changed since then. But yet, he was changed. He looked closer. He could see the change now; see some of the dark power he felt. His eyes had lost their bored, drunken look that continuously appeared in them. Now they looked wild. The pupils were black as death. The white's had darkened, into a deepened grey. The dark brown that had ringed his pupils was gone. It was now black.

His eyes convicted all who beheld them of his true loyalty.

Similarly, Biohazardluver had experienced changes. He felt the power coursing through his veins; saw it glowing through his eyes. The Ring of Charos... That was all. Charos had told him nothing more than to get the ring, and return it to him. Despite this lack of instruction, Bio knew where to go. Somehow, he knew to walk east. Turn left and head east. It may well have been the Power within him that guided his steps, or he was drawn to the Ring of Charos.

As Bio had known in which direction the Ring was, so Kysin should've known where the Staff of Armadyl was. He knew where it was, roughly. Only the guidance was coming from three different places. Two of them to the north at slightly different angles, and one of them from another plane of life in itself. Despite this, Kysin wasn't confused. He had heard of the invisible teleportation of the elves, although he had never used it because he was not a mage. Never a mage. Kysin chose one of the places to the North, and followed it.


	24. Into Darkness

Chapter Twenty-Three:

Into Darkness

Blazingwarri woke to a confusing world of chaos and moonlight. Blearily he recollected what had occurred before he had fallen asleep. They had arrived at Morytania... Cerrin had arrived... she had gone to help the priest hold the evil back. The scene articulated as sleep left him.

"Blazingwarri wake up!" Freak said urgently, shaking Blazingwarri's shoulder.

For the first time Blazingwarri sat up and had a good look at the scene. The full moon lit up almost everything, throwing light on an array of weaponry, armour, and... Teeth... claws. Blazingwarri was wide awake now. Darkness fled from the east, as if Morytania was slowly cursing the encampment with its evil shroud. And figures, creatures... bats of any size and shape, some of which morphed into pale humanoids. Vampires. Howls. Full moon. Wolfmen were in abundance. Somehow, Morytania had found a way to allow it's occupants to cross the holy river and invade.

The noobs had been totally unprepared for an attack. Yet they were still putting up a solid defence, for noobs - one that Blazingwarri judged would last about another fifteen minutes with serious reinforcements. Radune was screaming orders, his voice barely audible over the clamour of battle.

"Guys, run to Varrock and stay together!" Freak bellowed over the cacophony. Not waiting for an answer, he turned and followed the grey road west, grey now silver by moonlight. Wordlessly, the Black Guard and friends followed Freak. Freakoldman, Blazingwarri, Rane, Dunan, Cerrin Wyver, Calladus.

They were almost out of sight of the encampment before it happened. With a snarl a wolfman who had broken away from the main fray to follow them hurled itself at the slowest runner. Calladus yell stopped the others in their tracks. Cerrin quickly hurled a fire wave at the wolfman, who promptly burst into flames and, yelping, threw itself to the ground.

"Keep going." Said a slightly singed, but otherwise unhurt, Calladus.

Freak nodded and turned to continue the journey to Varrock. "Dunan, wha..."

Dunan was staring towards the fight, a definite look of abject terror on his face. One by one, the rest of the group followed his gaze - to a dozen or so small bats flying, not aimlessly as most bats do, but directly towards them.

"Vampires." Said Dunan, dispassionately as if fear had robbed him of all emotions. Even looking at these bat's swift, straight, sure course sent shivers racing along Rane's spine. Excalibur was in his hand and ready before Freak gave the command to fight.

The bats were mere inches from Rane's face before they dropped out of the sky, landing in a ghostly white form that vaguely resembled a human. Blocking everything else out of his mind, Rane attacked.

The vampires were quick, fast and effective. Their claws were like talons; their teeth were better daggers than could be made on any anvil. They ducked, dodged and manoeuvred around out of the way of the group's blows almost effortlessly. Their attacks were effective at finding places unprotected by armour of any kind. The group fought harder at dodging the vampire's attacks than attacking them. Almost before they knew it, they were surrounded.

Daylight erupted. Shading his eyes against the unfamiliar light, Rane turned towards its source. Cerrin was standing alone; her staff alight with fire that glowed white gold. The vampires hissed, retreated. Rane feverishly attacked those blocking their escape towards Varrock. Cerrin walked towards the vampires retreating slowly towards Morytania. The vampires hissed and spat, but would not approach the light.

They gave up. The vampires turned, and ran. But before they ran, they picked up something from the ground. Slinging it between two of them, the vampires ran east. Rane barely had time to register Calladus's face, his injured body, in the arms of the vampires.

"They got Calladus!" Rane shouted, sprinting at full length towards the receding vampires. Footsteps behind and around him indicated that his companions were giving chase.

The fight was almost over now. A pitiful handful of noobs were all that remained of Radune's command. Rane didn't look around to see how many noobs survived, if their leader was dead... Excalibur in hand, his sights locked on the vampires, Rane chased.

The vampires jumped, and jumped well. They jumped into the river, the holy river which had at one time held Morytania at bay. The vampires landed in the middle of the river, and swam the remaining distance swiftly. Weighed down by his armour, it was all Rane could do to keep them in sight.

Climbing out of the river, Rane was surprised at how the moon's light disappeared. Totally disappeared. He ran for another few minutes before he realised he could no longer see his quarry; rather he was following the sounds of their footsteps. Or were they the vampire's footsteps. Rune's foot splashed into a pool. Disturbed, he stepped back out of the water. He was certain he hadn't heard the vampires enter water. Speaking of vampires, he couldn't hear them at all. Couldn't hear anything at all. Could see even less. Pale white hands... reaching out of the swamp to drag him down... The horrifying image replayed itself unbidden in Rane's mind. An image heightened to the point of reality due to the fact he had nothing else to concentrate on. He could almost feel the swamp's hands reaching for him, from the water at his back. Wildly, he spun around, straining his eyes and ears for some definition of reality. Then he saw it. Lights. Pinpricks of clear light in the world of darkness. Forgetting everything Dunan had told him about willow -the-wisps, Rane stumbled towards the pinpricks of gold...

Freak had halted at the bank of river, as he had not the slightest idea on how to swim. Turning away from the river, he sprinted towards the trapdoor leading to the priest, to the source of the holy water. As quickly as he could, he ran through the labyrinth of pathways, and finally made it through the holy water curtain and out into the cursed land of Morytania. Freak might as well have been locked in a barrel, no light source, fourteen feet under the swamps of Lumbridge for all his eyes knew. The place was dead black. No stars, no moon, no lights, no nothing. Straining his ears to pick out the sounds of the vampires, but hearing nothing, Freak cursed. He carefully walked down the muddy slope to the river bank, and stopped with one foot in the river. He then made his way south, calling out his friend's name in the hope that some may hear.

Blazingwarri's meticulous exploration of all Runescape grounds served him well that night. He forded the river, half a step behind Rane. Focusing his ears on the sounds of the vampire's feet, he followed them unerringly east. And then he saw lights, lights of a village. Still Blazingwarri ran, even though he knew the village was inhabited with werewolves. The vampires rose into full view once bathed in the village lights. Calladus's limp form was visible, slung over one's shoulder. Blazingwarri felt the searing force of a flame spell rush past his cheek. It exploded on a vampire, who hissed dangerously but kept moving. They were almost out of the village now, out east. Blazingwarri was passing the last group of houses when something snatched his feet from under him, and dragged him beneath the house. Another fire spell, a fanged jaw, claws holding stone... the stone collided with Blazingwarri's skull, rendering him senseless.

Cerrin Wyver went far better than any of her friends did. She had cast a reverse wind wave that had carried her safely across the river, and had trusted Blazingwarri's sense of direction from there. Before the fight, during the run to Varrock, she had whispered a quick locator spell on each of her companions in case they got lost or separated. Which consequently made Blazingwarri stand out like a beacon amid the inky atmosphere. Reaching the village, she had sighted the vampires and thrown a few quick fire blasts at their backs. After one such blast she noticed that Blazingwarri had disappeared, but she didn't think very much of it. Leaving the lights of the village behind, she raced after the vampires. Darkness enveloped her as surely as water. The instant she noticed the darkness, Cerrin stopped running. "_Lumos Maxima" She_ whispered to her staff. She'd learnt a few things from Harry Potter books. The staff flared into light, light that was swallowed up into the shadows in a short distance. Cerrin could no longer hear the footsteps of the vampires. Instead, she turned around and headed back in the direction towards where she thought the village was.

Luthandros had been asleep in the temple when the creatures had crossed the river. He quickly awoke once the battle started though. Climbing quickly to the top of the temple, he watched the fight from a window with no thoughts of joining in. He had seen the vampires cross the river with Calladus's limp form earlier; he had seen the Black Guard cross also, one after another. Cross and get swallowed up in the deep shadows. With jealousy he watched Cerrin sail across the river on the force of her magic.

Dunan was almost the fastest runner of the group, second to Blazingwarri. In the run to Varrock, he'd been out in front; placing him farthest away from the vampires when they attacked. As he saw the vampires attack, saw they're numbers, strength, speed... Fear took over. Dunan had turned and fled north into the hills, scrambling up the ashy slopes as if he had the world's end chasing him. Dunan tired after a while, and looked around him. From what the moonlight revealed, he was in the middle of a long, low range of mountains covered with grey ash. And he was alone. No vampires, werewolves... or friends. Friends. They were like the first friends Dunan ever had. Carefully, poised to run at any moment, Dunan worked his way back to the Varrock/Morytania Road. Back to where he had left his friends. Back to the vampires.

About an hour later, Dunan arrived at the place where he had last seen his friends. Dunan cursed his fear as he discovered that they were missing. Furthermore, there were no footprints in the direction of Varrock. The soft grey ground would've preserved the footprints perfectly. Dunan didn't have the tracking skills of Blazingwarri: The fact he couldn't see his friend's footprints and his natural fear led him to believe his friends had been taken captive. If the vampires had eaten them... The bodies or something should still be there.

For another hour almost Dunan argued to himself, interrupted only once by the seemingly lone survivor of the noob outpost: Radune.

As soon as Dunan had seen Radune's figure walking in the direction of Varrock, he had run and hid amongst the boulders lining the road. Whatever choice Dunan made, he was convinced the noobs weren't going to love it. Radune was almost level with Dunan, when he called out:

"Lost my entire command first night. I'm in enough shit already without having to explain saving little kid like you." Radune said.

Feeling foolish, Dunan climbed out of hiding. Radune looked at him.

"You know what to do now? You should go help your friends if you can; you got a better chance in this war with them than alone. I reckon you know enough about Morytania and the monsters more than anyone else. If anyone's gonna be able to help your friends, or even bother about 'em, it's you." Radune said, before marching off in Varrock's direction.

"Dunan you are released from the noobs army. If asked you were never in, got it?" The noob commander called back. Dunan could only nod.

Always the same conclusion won out: His friends had been kidnapped. And he, Dunan0, was damned if he was going to leave his friends to the vampires. Slowly, Dunan forced himself to walk east, his forced movement and attitude enhanced by the dawning of the sun over shadow.


	25. Dwarves and Barbarians Arise

Chapter Twenty-Four:

Dwarves and Barbarians Arise

"Askeladden!" A young Fremmenik warrior yelled as the Fremmenik child Askeladden sprinted off and disappeared behind the houses. Another young warrior nearby laughed.

"He stole my fish!" The first warrior said. His companion, again, laughed.

"It's stolen fish, remember? We got it from the fishmongers, free of charge." Said the second warrior.

His companion appeared not to have heard him. "I'm gonna boil that kid..." He muttered, as he stalked off in the direction Askeladden had taken.

"Gigawolf he's just a kid. Forget it. You can't just kill people anymore, anyway." The second warrior called at his friend's receding back.

Gigawolf sighed and returned to the hut where his friend was. "You'd want that kid dead if he'd stolen your fish, wouldn't you Skwerlguy." He said. Skwerlguy shrugged, and was about to answer when the town bard walked past.

"All warriors are called to the longhouse! All warriors to the longhouse!" The bard called.

Skwerlguy and Gigawolf looked at each other questioningly. "It's probably something about the cloud or dagganoths." Skwerlguy guessed. They went to the longhouse, accompanied by the rest of Rekella's fighters.

"Hey, look." Gigawolf grinned, nodding towards a towering white, hairy monster. "It's the King of Miscellanea."

Skwerlguy looked. The former Miscellanea king, who had been transformed incurably into a white monster on one of his adventures, was indeed here. But why?

The two warriors listened to the individual conversations taking place in the longhouse as they looked, surprised at the hundreds of barbarians and dwarves that congregated in the building.

"How do Miscellanian people live with that as their king?"

"They don't; I heard some random adventurer married the King's daughter, only he's never there to run the country so the advisor rules it..."

"Forget that, Gunthor? He never leaves his outpost."

"I heard the white knights kicked them out."

"Keldagrim dwarves, in Rekella?"

"Yep that's right me tall friends, the Red Axe arose and won over most the council except the Green emerald and the purple..."

"...Yeah mate, that's great. Explain again why you's short people can't just have a chief like us?"

"Nice armour!"

"Yes, dagganoth hunting has been good this year."

"Cousin Gunnjorn, how goes the agility outpost?"

"From the agility outpost...? When did all you guys get here?" Asked Gigawolf of a nearby warrior.

"If ya spent less time robbing us blind you woulda seen it! The tribes are meeting!"

"…So you're saying that some totally random adventurer turns up, marries the princess, gets himself elected king, runs off and no one's ever seen him since?"

"Gunthor my friend! Is it you only from your clan?"

"The draugen's still out there, I can feel it..."

"Look mate, every single man here who's passed their trials 'as killed that draugen."

"Swensen, a strange name? Shall I say nothing of yours? I am named such for a crucial reason, though I doubt your name hold similar significance."

"Askeladden bring that back! Oh Guthix forbid the day when that lad becomes a Fremmenik!"

"SILENCE!" Roared Chieftain Brundt, over the general hubbub of voices.

Silence fell, the warriors turned towards the stage.

"Right you lot, shut up and listen! Gunthor 'ere says that they adventurers destroyed his entire village! Are we supposed to sit here and dye wool when something like this happens?"

A resounding "NO!" echoed across the longhouse from the throats of the warriors.

"And what of Miscellanea? Some other adventurer married the princess, agrees to run the kingdom, then skips off hunting dragons and picking flax? And should naught be said of those who use the agility course incessantly, showing no common courtesy to us, to we who own, run and keep it going? Guthix himself knows how many have taken advantage of our guard there's inability to read, and just snuck in without completing the bar crawl! And now we get word that these same adventurers have trampled the dwarves and the druids! My clansmen, are we going to stand for this?"

"NEVER!" Yelled the warriors.

"AND IT ISN'T ONLY US! They dwarves 'ave turned on each other and are almost been wiped out of them's city! And the adventurers," he spat on the last word, "helped kick the good fellows out, and steal some of them's stuff! Only to rebuild the statue they broke in the first place! Since what age do barbarians sit back like rabbits while our small friends get trampled?"

This was greeted with a tumult of outraged voices.

"I THOUGHT NOT!" Roared the chieftain over the clamour. "You lot have until dawn tomorrow to gather your weapons and such, and meet outside the city. I want ever able-bodied man and dwarf there. Anyone missing and I'm sending real men to drag you out by the scruff of your neck!"

Laughter greeted this last statement.

The chief smiled. Without any more words or introduction he announced that the feast should begin, in honour of every barbarian clan around Gielinor meeting here today.

Dawn rose over a dusty brown scene. The ground was dark brown and fertile, most of the trees were stripped bare. The skin of the some hundred warriors was tanned brown and their clothing was much the same colour. As the sun rose, it glinted off a myriad of axe blades, metal helmets and notched arrows. Roosters greeted the dawn, barely heard over the friendly jests and exchanges of the men outside the town.

"RIGHT YOU LOT, GET MOVING!" Brundt the chieftain wasn't heard by everyone, but those who could hear him started south, and those who couldn't followed everyone else. The march, if it could be described as such, was full of friendly chatter that would sooner be found at a reunion than a march to war.

"What's that kid doing here?" Grinned Skwerlguy, nudging his friend and gesturing towards a short, but compact, figure. If it had been anyone else watching him, they may have seen the short, cloaked and hooded figure as a dwarf. But Skwerlguy and Gigawolf were too acquainted with the Fremmenik boy, Askeladden, to mistake him now.

The morning sun was still casting shadows over the barbarians from the eastern mountains when they reached the river. Holding all weapons that were apt to rust above their heads, the warriors entered the freezing water, laughing at the shock of cold water in the true, crazy way of the barbarians. Despite the fact that there was a bridge that spanned the river, few if any made use of it for fear of becoming the source of jest for their fellow clansmen. Even the dwarves swam, as akin to the barbarians in almost every way except height.

"Captain Leafdarking, there's heaps of barbarians, they're coming this way and they're all armed!" Said a small, scared noob.

"Where? Which way?" demanded Leafdarking.

"Umm... that way." Said the noob, waving his hand in the general direction of north. Leafdarking strode north a ways, and could hear her enemy before she saw them. With a squirrel's agility, she raced up a tree so as to get a better view of her enemy. Her mouth dropped open as she gaped at the mass of warriors, the last barbarians and dwarves living in Runescape.

A piercing shout detached itself from the rest of the barbarian's clamour. Shading her eyes against the early sun, Leafdarking noted an archer, bow drawn, arrow aimed at her. She jumped to the ground, disregarding the distance as an arrow the size of a javelin clattered into the branches where she'd been less that a second earlier.

Pain shot through her legs as she landed. Allowing her no time to recover, she ran towards the village once known as Seers village, messaging Rorthan as she ran.

"Barbarians are coming. We need reinforcements. Lots of reinforcements."

Rorthan's heart froze as he received her message. With the quick logic of a born tactician, he ordered her to retreat to Burthorpe. He sighed. First the kalphites invaded Al Kharid, forcing Killerbum's group to retreat, then Morytania annihilated Radune's entire command save himself and the lazy thief Luthandros, now this. Now the only land they truly could hope to hold once the Kalphites, Morytania and Barbarians had moved in was the lands around Taverly and Burthorpe. By Zamorak's iron fist, did the great war god not want the campaign to succeed?


	26. When there's a War

A/N: Hi all! I'm back and writing after like a five month siesta give or take a few weeks…. Apologies it's been so long, I got kinda overwhelmed by the amount of people interested in this story and wrote myself into a corner trying to incorporate everyone into the fiction… After a few chapters I decided to focus less on getting everyone's character into the fiction, and focus more on making it a good story… which I think is the main element of this fic. So I scrapped the long and complicated cliché the story had become from chapter 25 onwards… and started over.

Chapter Twenty-Five:

When there's a War, Where's the Safest Place to Be?

"Nakama used the orb to make the mage appear. The mage is skilled, very much so in the knowledge of Azzandra, demon of Zaros himself. He summoned a pall of smoke that hid him as he teleported. A hand mirror was all he left behind." Darknessdie explained as we ran to the bank.

No. By Guthix himself no. I knew what this meant. A little hand mirror. I knew where that came from. There was only one place in all of Runescape. Inside an ancient temple. An elvish Temple of Light that was far-removed from any major city or tangible control. A temple that was property of no power in this war… A temple overrun with shadows, that lay beneath the mountains of Arandar. A temple with only two entrances. The easiest was through the underground pass, the hardest was through western Ardougne mourner's headquarters. Worse still, I wasn't sure if the Mourner's would let any of my friends in.

At the bank, I replenished my stock of potions, food and runes. Outstretching my arms, I watched the familiar purple haze surround me. My eyes were open during teleportion. I saw the red world which every adventurer briefly passes through when teleporting... but it wasn't entirely red. In the split second allowed to me, I thought I saw a shadow in the red. A gray shadow in the red, shifting alien world of Kryarn's nightmares. But only for a mere second, before marketplace of Ardougne appeared before me.

The marketplace had hardly changed since I was here last. Thieves stole, shopkeepers yelled... Only difference was the guards. Normally, they yelled at the thieves to stop. Now, they were lying on the ground, still like corpses. Which was basically all they were now.

"So, we're all back here together again." Said Kryarn. I looked around me. Parrea, Hawkfeather, Darknessdie, Kryarn, Nakama, Adrilor and myself. We were all here. I barely had time to register their faces before Parrea spoke.

"God, Zanathir, don't do that again. You had us scared." She said. Hawkfeather nodded.

"Anyone know where this handmirror comes from?" Said Nakama, softly. I looked at it. Damit. It was definitely one of the ones in the elvish Temple of Light.

"Your safest route is probably through the underground pass, though I don't think anywhere near Western Ardougne is advisable. Darknessdie can escort you, Nakama should go too because she's got the orb." Hawkfeather said after I explained where the handmirror came from.

"My friend is coming." Nakama said, quietly as she did always.

"What friend?" Asked Parrea, bluntly.

"The one who created the orb, her name's Noela. She won't take long, but she has to move because noobs have found our headquarters in the dwarven mines." Nakama replied. "You can't go into West Ardougne anyway; the mourners are only letting other mourners in." She added.

"Is there any other w... Hey, how'd your friend know that?" Said Kryarn, suspiciously. Nakama shrugged.

"Noela's got eyes all over Runescape." Was her reply.

"I think there's another entrance to the temple." Said Hawkfeather. "I've heard there's an alter for crafting death runes, and the Zamorak mage outside Edgeville can send us to another dimension from where we can access the temple. There's a death alter inside that temple, right Zanathir?"

Yes, good. "Yep, there's a death alter. Everyone tele to Edgeville, meet again there." I said. To my surprise, no one argued. Glory amulets came out, were rubbed, my friends disappeared almost at the same time, except Kryarn who stayed behind, his face a shade of green that would make a Jogre envious.

"Um, dude, this other dimension, is it like the place where you can get stuck in while teleporting?" Kryarn asked. I was surprised by his nervous tone. He looked like he had just met the Empty Lord himself.

"I've never been there, but it's like the place where you accidentally went to after teleporting from Thormac's tower. Think it's the same place actually." Kryarn's eyes widened and his tan paled.

"I'll stay here and wait for you guys, right?" Kryarn suggested. I sighed. "Dude, just come to Edgeville, or go to Catherby and catch us something, go make potions or something useful alright?" I said. Kryarn nodded. I smiled, rubbed my amulet and left for Edgeville.

The second we arrived at Edgeville, I was sure our presence wasn't welcome. Noobs. Everywhere around us, noobs yelled, grabbed weapons and attacked. There were only a few, maybe twenty-five or so noobs. Not enough to pose a large problem. I switched on protection against mages and followed Hawkfeather into the wilderness.

The entrance to "The Abyss" as Hawkfeather called it, turned out to be through charred and injured mage of Zamorak. I wouldn't have known him as a servant of Zamorak had Hawkfeather not introduced him as such. His entire skin reminded me of Darknessdie's right arm and neck. In Dark's case, only the skin touched by the cape and staff of Zamorak had been affected. This mage appeared to have been wearing full Zamorak robes when the cloud struck him. Despite his weakened state, he was still able to teleport us to the Abyss.

"Pray against melee, once you get inside wait for the others." Hawkfeather said. The mage threw a thick cloud of purple at Hawkfeather, which cleared leaving no trace of my friend. Turning to my friends one by one, the mage threw the same blanket of purple over us. It was similar to ordinary teleportion, but a lot thicker and faster.

I prayed against melee attacks just before the mage cast the purple haze on me. I closed my eyes, felt myself shrink... and land on soft ground. Ground that felt like the swamps of Lumbridge. I opened my eyes. The ground was red. The walls were red. The roof was red. The creatures were red. Red with black eyes. The creatures were aggressive, but none of them injured me because of my prayers. I understood now why Kryarn didn't want to come with us. Knowing his phobia of little crawling creatures, this place would be the epitome of his nightmares.

Parrea appeared beside me, and gasped at the place. One of the creatures readied itself for an attack beside her, and she reacted automatically. One rune arrow broke the creatures like water. Just like water. The arrow hit the creature, and the red thing splashed apart. Like water. Red water.

Or blood. 'These things are made of blood.' I thought, disturbed.

"Hey!" Hawkfeather called. We jogged over to him. He had chopped a path through a group of red vines, revealing a narrow passageway. One by one, we entered.

On the other side of the passageway, it was quiet. Still and quiet, unlike the turmoil of the abyss we had just left behind. There were portals, a wall with portals that had runic signs inscribed into them.

Finding the death portal, I stepped through it.

I found myself in the death runecrafting temple. Finding the portal out, I stepped into it, fully expecting to end up in the Elvish Temple of Light.

I exited the portal, and was faced with the sinister orderliness of the ancient elven light temple. I looked around. Last time I'd been here, there'd been a friendly dwarf. Now, now… there was no dwarf…

But that wasn't my concern. My concern lay with a shadowy mage, in a temple where light threw shadows everywhere, where shadows waltzed the corridors like the plague…

Last time I'd been here, I'd been here for hours. Many, many hours. The temple is an utter maze. A thorough maze, a complicated myriad of lights and mirrors. Shadows prowled the corridors, shadows that knocked massive amounts off one's health…

And now somewhere, I had to find a mage that wanted me dead…

"Arkane! How's ya doin'?"

"Kryarn man! 'Aven't seen ya for pigs years!"

"Lol dude, did ya see that cloud?"

"Hell ya, that thing got us all worried. And there's not heaps as can worry a banker, cause everyone needs banks so no one's gonna take us out."

"Me, I'm in Ardy at the time, caught it full on."

"Hey Bro, you gotta have some fair stories on ya then. Grab a beer and sit ya down."

"Thanks mate. Oh boy do I got stories… but don't you have work? You being a banker and all…"

"Meh, why work when there's stories and beer? It's only noobs what comes in now abouts anyway. An' they can do without their fur and grain for a tad longer I reckon."

Kryarn settled himself comfortably on a chair behind the counter in Catherby bank, a bank that was basically on the noob/barbarian battlefront.

Arkane had joined the bank of Runescape mainly because of the safety. He was quite right in that very few people would harm a banker: they are needed by everyone. With the job came plenty of people to talk to, both staff and customer. And the opportunity to sometimes handle priceless items like party hats and onyx jewelry… and then there was items like corpses, decayed heads and raw meat… every job has it's downsides. All in all, it was a very coveted position that Arkane held, and not one he'd give up in a hurry.

As Kryarn began to explain his tale, illustrated with many flamboyant gestures and the lazy speech of commoners, the bankers one by one knocked off work to listen and laugh. Such was his gift of speech that, within the hour, he had not only the entire bank staff enraptured, but a congregation of about fifteen noobs and a healthy scattering of barbarians and dwarves as well.

This was Kryarn's gift. He wasn't a brave warrior, or a brilliant fighter, he wasn't even skilled in a trade like smithing or woodcutting. He was a laid-back, entertainment orientated fellow who frequented bars and drop-parties. He wasn't really a mage, but some would argue that he was as much enchanter as one with level 99 magic. The one thing he could do good, and he did it well, was talk. A talent that had him labeled useless in the combat-orientated world of Runescape.

High level, noob, NPC, banker… they didn't exist to all present that morning. All that mattered was Kryarn, and the spell he wove over his listeners, a spell as potent as anything Darknessdie or Adrilor could create, a spell far more subtle and gentle than both, but a spell all the same…


	27. Clever Hand, Dead Hand, Paw

Chapter Twenty-Six: Clever Hand, Dead Hand, Paw 

"Tharr's no Vampire, fool. 'Ats a crawling human."

"Human et be, argh? Good. Not had real brains fer nights now…"

Snatches of conversation in a guttural form of common speech floated past Blazingwarri as he slipped in and out of consciousness.

"Errre, meat. Rrwake up!" A dim, growling voice reached Blazingwarri's mind. He opened his eyes, and tried to focus.

"Rrrrake up. NOW!" The voice growled again, this time accompanied by a non-to-gentle kick that threw Blazingwarri's limp form against a hard, cold wall. The cold did more to help him wake up than the kick had done. He forced his eyes open and tried to stand, but nausea forced him back down again.

A bark of laughter from the werewolf that had kicked him. "Meat scared, yearh? Scare ruins tha meat, fool!" Blazingwarri focused his eyes on a shaggy, yellowed creature towering over him, with two red eyes blazing like rubies from the TzHaar's volcanic realm. The shock was enough to make him lapse into unconsciousness again.

* * *

P>"Meat. Drink." Blazingwarri turned his head away from a foul-smelling liquor that made him gag. Rough, clean-shaven hands grabbed his head and forced the liquid down his throat. Blazingwarri felt the drink burning its way through him, energizing his blood, waking him up.

"What was in that drink?" Asked Blazingwarri to no one, as his eyes focused.

"Grrreatest werewolv potion. Trak of snails, frrresh blood off the leeches, dirt from the swamps, crushed human bones all stewed in a ghoul's skull at the strength of the moon." The werewolf obligingly recited. Blazingwarri wanted to sick again. He shrank against the wall as the werewolf, in the form of a young, blonde-haired youth, approached him.

"Meat good fer anything, not meat?" It asked. "Got us here once a human what did off with a vampire lord. You can do anything like that?"

Blazingwarri's head swirled. He was a respectable fighter, but nothing up to the level of a vampire. What other skills did he have that might be of use to a werewolf…

"I can make armour… and weapons." He said.

The human wolf's eyes lit up. Without answering it jogged to a heap of crates and went through them, throwing loose articles out onto the floor. Some items were so familiar they made Blazingwarri's heart ache, like chicken feathers and a blacksmith's hammer. Others were less familiar, and were things he didn't want to think about.

An iron bar thunked on the floor in front of him. "Make something." The werewolf ordered, tossing another few iron bars over towards the hapless prisoner. Blazingwarri couldn't help admiring the creature's strength and aim, even when in human form.

He picked up the hammer, and was going to ask for an anvil but stopped as his mind's eye saw an anvil found in those crates, and tossed effortlessly towards him… He would make do with a bar of harder metal. One of the bars tossed towards him was the delicate blue shade of rune, that belied its true strength. "You got any more of these?" Blazingwarri asked, picking up the rune bar.

The werewolf huffed, and threw a few more of the ice blue bars over. Blazingwarri peered into the crate the werewolf had been pulling the bars out of. He almost gasped with surprise. There was a positive fortune in that crate, in rune and adamantite bars! There were also a few red bars. It crossed Blazingwarri's mind that these bars may be the coveted dragon metal, but that metal had yet to appear in any mine or bar… 'Must be a trick of the light. Those bars are probably bronze.' Thought Blazingwarri.

Blazingwarri had never handled anything higher than mithril before, but this wasn't really the time to argue levels. With a bit of effort he bashed the rune bars into a solid block that would serve as an anvil.

"What's meat doin?" A growl from the door. Blazingwarri looked and was surprised to see the giant figures of twin transformed werewolves at the door.

"Meat's maken us defense over vampires." Snapped the werewolf in the house, who, Blazingwarri noticed, had extended an overgrown fingernail and seemed to be carving a mural into a steel bar.

"Whats happening ef he don't make good armour?" Said a werewolf at the door.

"I'll gash him." Spoke the blonde werewolf in the house, casually.

Blazingwarri fought his fear down and concentrated on the task at hand. 'What's the best armour for a werewolf?' he thought. 'Vampires generally attack the neck.' He remembered from his early days spent in Varrock library.

'Maybe a collar would do. But to allow freedom, a collar of chainmail.' He looked at the amount of iron bars in front of him, and wondered if he could make a tunic of chainmail. It wouldn't be too hard. Just like an ordinary chain shirt, only larger…

Carefully, Blazingwarri set to work.

* * *

Some hours later, Blazingwarri had completed the chain tunic to his satisfaction.

"Finished." He told the werewolf in the house quietly. The human werewolf had remained sitting cross-legged since Blazingwarri had begun, carving into the same old steel bar.

It gave a growl of acknowledgement, and bounded over to snatch the chainmail from Blazingwarri's hands. It sniffed the iron, and felt it greedily before grabbing Blazingwarri's arm and hauling him out the door and down the stairs into the middle of the village.

* * *

"Yer not eaten this meat. Meat's making us armour…"

A bronze coloured werewolf strutted around, the chainmail tunic covering its neck and torso. Blazingwarri heaved an audible sigh of relief as he learnt that he wasn't going to be butchered by the werewolf community. Instead, from what he understood, he was going to make enough armour for the whole village. He knew that werewolves were part of the evil in Morytania, and making armour for them would only be helping the enemy, but when it was a choice between making armour and being eaten, well, Blazingwarri wasn't one for moral heroics.

* * *

"Come to usss…" A whisper floated through the darkness.

"Asss thy become one, of usss…" Same voice, different direction.

"Who… are you." Muttered Raneundead thickly, as he stumbled through the blackness, blank fear robbing him of all sane thought.

"Here… come to usss, friend…"

"To uss…"

"Follow me, become ussss…"

The voices overlapped one another, became more urgent, screaming with all their whispered strength to be heard.

Rane chased after the voices, and splashed down into a cold pool of water. The darkness didn't allow him to see the Hands reaching for him; it swallowed his scream as effortlessly as if it had never been uttered.

* * *

In all of Runescape, only two good beings heard Rane's last scream echo in the dark. One was a friend, still doggedly traveling south with one foot in the Salve River so as to not loose his way, and the other, a mysterious nature spirit, intent with making the swamp bearable for those passing though…

* * *

Freak heard the scream, and knew it to be Rane. He was not however, foolish enough to venture into the midnight swamp to find his friend. "Rane!" He called with all his might. No answer. "RANE!" He bellowed. The land remained stubbornly silent. Terrible thoughts crossed Freak's mind as to Rane's fate, but, being the stubborn optimist he was, he assumed he had misheard, and that Rane was still alive and well somewhere.

He continued his southerly trek, giving the ghastly scream no more thought.


End file.
